The Private Healthcare Information Network’s (PHIN) role is to enable people to make informed healthcare choices. Our website provides a wealth of information about private hospitals and specialist consultants across the UK.
PHIN is an independent, not-for-profit, organisation mandated by the Government to collect information on safety, quality, and costs in private healthcare in the UK. The sector can be complex; an investigation in 2014 by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), the UK regulator of business competition, found that people considering private healthcare did not have clear information to help them make informed choices.
The CMA Order which followed included the creation of an ‘Information Organisation’ (IO). PHIN became the nominated IO in 2015 with a mandate to collect data and publish a range of information for patients, including performance measures and fees. The data we publish on our website is provided by all hospitals and consultants offering private treatment.
PHIN was established in 2012 as a Company Limited by Guarantee without shareholding. In accordance with Company Law, we have voting Members who play a formal role in governance, similar to shareholders, but do not own the company and do not benefit from any profits or remuneration. The voting Members were originally the hospital groups that founded PHIN, but private medical insurers and organisations representing consultants now also participate.
As a membership-based organisation, working in partnership is a key component to PHIN’s ability to deliver its objectives. We work closely with a wide range of stakeholders, from hospitals to consultants, regulators, insurers and other public bodies, including patient representative groups, together monitoring and improving standards of care.
As a result, we publish unbiased information for everyone to access. This not only supports more informed patient choice – hopefully improving peace of mind to those due to receive treatment – but should also help providers and consultants improve their services.
Operating at the interface between healthcare delivery, health informatics, technology, and public service, our work is focused on our mission to ‘Serve patients, support stakeholders and deliver the Order’:
- Serve patients
Our main role is to help people make more informed choices when considering which hospital and consultant is right for them. We also provide broader information about how private healthcare is different from the NHS, so if a patient is using private healthcare for the first time, they will know what to expect.
- Support Stakeholders
We work closely with hospitals and consultants to ensure that they understand their obligations and that they know what data is required and how they submit it.
We collect more information about private healthcare than any other organisation in the UK. We work alongside hospitals which provide private patient care, medical representative groups, regulators, insurers and public bodies to supply information which should increasingly support professional regulation and drive improvement. This includes information consultants can use for appraisals and revalidation. We also publish information useful to academics and researchers.
- Deliver the Order
We have developed the architecture to allow submission of the required data by hospitals and consultants. We continue to work with them to allow compliance with the Order.
Where this approach does not work, we work closely with the CMA to provide it with the information required to take enforcement action. We always try to avoid this taking place and continue to work with stakeholders even after they are contacted by the CMA.
To complete our mission, PHIN must deploy appropriate and effective technologies to collect, store, process and publish sector wide data – our unique and valuable asset – while maintaining information security.
Our key outputs are our two websites:
- The public website for the public and consumers and other stakeholders
- The secure ‘portal’ for professional users.
We are continuing to develop these, alongside other channels, to ensure that the information we collect and promote is understood and valued by its target audiences. This means we also need effective internal business intelligence, management information and other systems to support effective customer service. Like any digital products, these require continuous development to remain relevant, effective, and competitive.
To achieve our goals, we work with hospitals, consultants and other stakeholders to assess how best to determine the relevant information we should publish, how to collect the relevant data and how to interpret that data. We do all of this before we publish anything.
Our effectiveness depends on the ability to communicate and work with hundreds of private hospitals, thousands of medical consultants and the private medical insurers that are subject to the CMA’s requirements. Trust is essential. We work closely with our stakeholders, including the CMA, to best serve and communicate effectively with our consumers/patients, understand changes in policy or in health informatics, and ensure we are an integral part of any conversation about the future of the healthcare system.
We share our expertise and knowledge to help improve the way data is collected and information is used within the entire UK healthcare system, we are currently working with NHS England on the Acute Data Alignment Programme (ADAPt) which will share public and private data for the first time, as well as quality, safety and clinical governance research with a team from the University of Manchester in a study funded by the National Institute for Health Research.
We have provided expert evidence to national healthcare inquiries, for example the Independent Inquiry into the Ian Paterson case, the Cumberlege Review and the Keogh Review of Cosmetic Surgical services.
How is PHIN organised
Alongside the Chief Executive there are five members of the Executive team, comprising:
- Chief Financial Officer
- Chief Technology Officer
- Director of Health Informatics
- Director of People and Process (who is also the Company Secretary).
- Member Services Director
The main functional teams within PHIN comprise:
- Technology –
- Development team responsible for management of our databases, consumer website and member portal
- Product team responsible for the design and development of our website and portal products
- Information Security and Services team responsible for maintaining the day-to-day systems and security, including ISO27001 compliance.
- Informatics – the engine room of PHIN, responsible for the analysis of data and data quality, and preparation of performance measures information for publication.
- Engagement – comprises PHIN’s Hospital and Consultant Engagement teams, our Communication team, and the team which leads our engagement with patients and other stakeholders, including PMIs and on PROMs.
- Corporate – this function comprises the Chief Executive, Chief Finance Officer and the Director of People and Process (Company Secretary). The team is supported by the administration and HR support team, as well as the cross-functional PMO team. Outsourced DPO, HR/recruitment, admin, legal and finance and accounting services are also managed by the corporate function.