CMA and PHIN No Longer Prepared to Wait to Achieve Full Compliance Across the Private Healthcare Market

A recent open letter to private healthcare consultants and hospitals (24 July, 2023) by the Competition & Markets Authority (CMA), has highlighted the risks facing private providers and consultants who are not submitting data to the Private Hospital Information Network (PHIN).

Hundreds of providers and consultants are submitting data which is now displayed on the PHIN website to help patients make informed decisions when choosing their healthcare provider.

However, the CMA open letter clearly warns that those who have made little or no effort to comply with the Private Health Market Investigation Order 2014 (The Order) may soon find themselves in an escalation pathway with legal ramifications for continuing non-compliance.

Already, providers are facing significant reputational risk by being publicly named for non-compliance. This is expected to become more common as the CMA, with support from PHIN, commit themselves to seeing full compliance across the sector by the 2026 deadline.

As an approved PROMs provider to the NHS and a current supplier of PROMs data to PHIN, Cemplicity understands the complexity and hurdles that providers face, as they work towards full compliance with the CMA mandate.

Manual data collection is increasingly impractical and costly, given the range of PROMs surveys that must be run. This is causing pressure on already busy staff and often leads to data quality and security issues. It is essential that the process to survey patients and report data to PHIN is automated and streamlined. Not only does this save money and free up staff time and resources, it leads to better data quality and completeness. Hospitals that start this process with a compliance mindset are often surprised at the value of a full dataset for quality and safety improvement.

About Cemplicity

Cemplicity is a global leader in digital PROMs data collection and reporting. Working across the UK, Ireland, New Zealand and Australia, we work with providers to simplify and automate patient feedback. Healthcare organisations work with Cemplicity to ensure they fully meet PHIN requirements as well using PROMs for quality improvement and patient/clinician shared decision-making.