The must-read stories and debate in health policy and leadership.

In recent years the independent sector and the NHS have had an interesting relationship. During the pandemic, they reached unprecedented agreements, which have continued as a means of tackling the immense elective backlog.

However, another side to this has been highlighted by the Royal College of Ophthalmologists, whose members are concerned that cases are being passed back to the NHS when IS care has failed, leaving the NHS with a greater concentration of more serious, and expensive, cases as the IS focused on routine cataract operations.

The college’s president has suggested more intelligent commissioning is required, with the independent sector providing more NHS outpatient appointments, of which there is a huge backlog.

Bernie Chang said positive change would require “joined up collaboration between the two sectors, backed up by investment in comprehensive NHS services”.

Professor Chang has also suggested disinvestment in the NHS has allowed IS ophthalmology to thrive, with its counterpart struggling with theatre space and technology as well as staff. 

David Hare, chief executive of the Independent Healthcare Provider Network, said he supports the call for “planning and commissioning processes to develop and evolve” but refuted the suggestion the sector has a negative impact, pointing to the volume of surgery it has done.

Is free the enemy of fit?

The NHS makes people too “lazy” to take responsibility for their health.

That is the view of Sam Patel, director of leading pharmacy chain Day Lewis, who also said the fact the NHS was “free” meant there was little “jeopardy” discouraging people from becoming ill, and encouraged people to accept a lower level of care.

Mr Patel’s fellow Day Lewis director Jay Patel was one of the private healthcare leaders invited to Rishi Sunak’s Downing Street health summit in January. The company has more than 250 branches concentrated in London and the south of England.

Speaking at an event organised by strategy advisory firm Global Counsel last week, Sam Patel said: “The jeopardy of feeling ill is not that bad because you get taken care of. In other countries, even in emerging markets like India where my parents originally come from, people spend vast amounts to make sure they don’t get ill because there is jeopardy in doing so. We need to change the population’s mindset to take care of themselves.”

Read all of Sam Patel’s comments in our story here.

Also on hsj.co.uk today

In North by North West, Lawrence Dunhill says that investigations into the Edenfield care scandal have suggested the executive team had been made aware of significant problems, and in news we report that very senior interim managers employed on a day rate of over £750 will have to be hired through “on-framework” recruitment agencies.