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The NHS is to buy a private hospital in London for
£27.5 million in a bid to cut waiting lists for operations. Staff,
wards and equipment at the Heart Hospital, off Harley Street, will
be transferred to the public sector in a groundbreaking deal announced
today.
The hospital in Marylebone was founded in 1857 and became part of
the NHS when it was set up in 1947. It will now join the University
College Hospital NHS Trust. The move is the most drastic step yet
taken by the Government as it seeks to meet its targets for increasing
the number of operations carried out in the NHS. The deal will enable
the NHS hospital to double the number of heart operations it carries
out and free up capacity for other types of surgery, although the
hospital's 600 private patients will continue on the same basis.
The DoH said it would not rule out other purchases similar to this.
Health minister Hazel Blears told the BBC: "We will be able to double
the number of NHS patients treated, and they will get seen much
more quickly as well as the facilities coming over to the NHS, the
nurses. doctors and technicians are all going to be working in the
NHS, so its really going to be a good deal for patients. "This is
almost a heaven-sent opportunity for us."
Sir Richard Needham, former Tory Cabinet minister and chairman of
The Heart Hospital, told The Times that building a similar standard
of unit from scratch would have cost the NHS many more millions.
"This is the best private cardiac facility in Europe and it matches
anywhere else in the world," he said.
The Heart Hospital has four operating theatres
and 95 beds, many in single rooms. There will be no redundancies
among the 162 staff, who will be offered NHS contracts when their
current ones run out. Doctors own a 35 per cent stake in the private
facility, and are expected to net £9 million from the sale.
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