Responding to the Government’s announcement of a New Elective Recovery Taskforce to help unlock spare capacity in the independent sector to bust the Covid backlogs and reduce waiting times, David Hare, Chief Executive of the Independent Healthcare Providers Network (IHPN), said: 

“We strongly welcome the establishment of a new taskforce to look at how the NHS can turbo-charge its use of the independent sector to tackle the elective care backlog.

“For decades independent sector capacity has been used by the NHS to improve patients’ access to care free at the point of use, and giving patients’ a legal right to choose an independent sector provider for their treatment was a big factor in getting NHS waiting times down in the 2000’s.

“The taskforce is a great opportunity to learn lessons from that period and in particular to make good on patients’ legal right to choose the best provider for them, whether public or independent sector, and to ensure that the capacity and capability which is available in the independent sector is being fully utilised for the benefit of NHS patients.”