Private centre for NHS patients has new owner

The Eccleshill NHS Treatment Centre in Bradford was heavily criticised following the death of a university lecturer in January 2007 when routine surgery went badly wrong.

National firm Care UK will take over running the centre, which treats around 20,000 patients a year and employs 90 staff.

Care UK will also continue to operate a similar centre at Barlborough, near Chesterfield, where its 120-strong staff carry out nearly one in five of all knee and hip replacements on patients from South Yorkshire and the East Midlands.

But in a significant move, both centres will only be paid for the work they carry out in the same way that NHS hospitals are paid on a procedure by procedure basis and at the same price. Previously they were guaranteed a fixed income and received millions for work not carried out.

Latest figures show the Barlborough centre was paid 5.1 m for treatment it did not perform in 2009-10 after too few patients were referred there, up from 2m in 2008-9.

Matt Neligan, director of strategy at NHS Bradford and Airedale, said the Eccleshill deal was "good value for money".

"By re-commissioning these services we are able to ensure patients across Bradford, Airedale and Leeds have easy access to a range of high quality treatment and maintain shorter waiting times locally," he said.

Mark Hunt, Care UK's managing director of healthcare, said the centres would help the NHS address increasing demands for efficiency.

"Many of our centres see and treat patients within a few weeks of referral. I doubt patients will tolerate a return to the bad old days when someone could wait, in pain, for many months and even years for a replacement knee or hip," he said.

Care UK will have a 25-year lease on the Barlborough centre in contrast to its previous five-year deal which prompted fears it could close when its contract ran out early this year.

Nations Healthcare opened the Eccleshill centre in 2005 before being taken over by another firm Circle in July 2007. A spokeswoman said it was proud of the work by staff to turn round the centre since then.