Download our updated information on private care in the UK.

The latest information for patient volumes, length of stay, Never Events, infections, and health outcomes is now available to download. The latest information covers the period from 1st January 2020 to 31st December 2020. 

The latest measures published show: 

  • 18 serious safety incidents (known as Never Events) reported across 273 independent and NHS hospitals treating private patients from 1st January 2020 to 31st December 2020. This compares with 19 Never Events across 272 sites between 1st October 2019 to 30th September 2020.   
  • 194 reported healthcare associated infection (HCAIs) in the year across 800,000 bed days, across the sites where we could calculate a rate. This shows a slight change in the overall HCAI infection rate from 21.9 per 100,000 bed days in the previous period (1st October 2019 to 30th September 2020) to 24 per 100,000 bed days. In addition there were 22 HCAIs for which we could not calculate a rate, making a total of 216 HCAIs in the period. 
  • 50 reported surgical site infections (SSI) across 24,819 patients undergoing hip and knee replacement procedures. The overall percentage risk remains unchanged at 0.2% in the new period. There were no SSIs for which we could not calculate a percentage risk.  
  • The percentage of patients reporting positive health improvement following hip replacement surgery (undertaken as a primary procedure) shows a change from 97.9% in the period ending September 2019, to 98% in the latest period ending December 2019. For knee replacement surgery (undertaken as a primary procedure) the percentage of patients reporting positive health improvement changed slightly from 94.4% to 94.9%, with knee revision surgery changing from 88.9% to 85.7% over the same periods.  
  • The total number of private spells in the UK decreased from 539,720 in the previous period to 527,405 in the current period. 

Alongside private activity, PHIN has also published statistics on NHS volumes in facilities which treat private patients – including all independent and NHS hospitals which treat private patients. This is to ensure that people using PHIN’s website can get a more complete understanding of the scale and nature of treatment offered at hospitals where they may be considering private care. 

PHIN has produced downloadable PDF and Excel versions of these datasets which can be accessed below. The breakdown of NHS funded activity by site and procedure is also available in the downloadable volume and length of stay datasheet.

Go to Our Data to view and download all the latest datasheets