Children in Private Hospitals

The Care Standards Act comes into force in April and it is starting to have some effects on the provision of private facilities for children. Private Hospitals can no longer employ nurses with only a basic qualification but must ensure that if they are working with children they have the special training needed for this type of nursing.

There has been some concern that the new rules will cause most private hospitals to shut their doors to children leaving subscribers to private medicine with no choice but the NHS.

With this in mind, we contacted the main private hospital chains to get their views. BMI said that 6 of their 46 units would stop admitting children while BUPA reported 4 of their 35 hospitals as being in this position. Nuffield could not, as yet say how many of their 44 hospitals might cease to treat children, but they did not expect that it would be more than 10. Capio with 21 hospitals told us that they will be ceasing paediatric care in 2 hospitals. Only HCA, the group with 6 large hospitals in Central London, said that the Act would make a big change to the way in which they treat children. They told us that only 2 of their Hospitals would be able to nurse children as in-patients. However, one of these two is the Portland Hospital for women and children; by far the largest hospital of its kind in the country and it is not surprising that HCA would take this opportunity to concentrate most of its paediatric resources into this unit.

These five groups control 74% of the market, so it seems clear that there will continue to be plentiful provision for treating children in the private sector in most areas of the country. "Children" in this context are classed as aged between 3 and 16. Under this age, very few private hospitals will try to meet the requirements of the new Act. This is no great surprise, however, as the needs of very young children have always been recognised as requiring special resources. Consequently, the Act will not make any great change to the situation.