A CONTROVERSIAL Derbyshire private hospital has cost taxpayers in the county £21.9m but only delivered £15m worth of treatment.

Barlborough Treatment Centre opened in July 2005 as part of the Government's plans to slash NHS waiting lists by using privately-run hospitals to perform routine hip and knee replacement operations.

Health bosses, keen to cut waiting lists, tied themselves into a five-year contract which involved paying a set amount to the centre, regardless of how many patients it treated.

The Derby Telegraph reported last week that the contract will not be renewed when it expires in April, casting doubt over the future of the hospital.

Now figures have revealed that health bosses in Derby paid £7.5m for £3.1m worth of treatment, while in the rest of the county those figures were £14.4m for £12m worth of care.

This means that patients in Derby got just 42% of the care they paid for, while in Derbyshire they got 83%.

Mike Murray, programme manager for primary and community care at NHS Derby City, said there was a need for the centre when it opened.

But he admitted: "A five-year contract wasn't necessarily the best arrangement."

The centre, just off Junction 30 of the M1, is owned by the NHS but run by a private company called Care UK.

Plans for independent treatment centres across the UK were first announced in September 2003 by Health Secretary John Reid, who said: "Tens of thousands of NHS patients will have their operations quicker as a result of this initiative."

The 10 NHS organisations in the East Midlands and South Yorkshire which used Barlborough will not be renewing their five-year contract with Care UK when it runs out in April.

Health bosses said they would like Barlborough to continue to provide knee and hip operations for the NHS, but without the cost and commitment of a long-term contract.

They believe there is no longer any need for the NHS to be tied into a long-term deal because waiting times have been successfully reduced.

Instead they would look at paying per patient.

The hospital could end up being run by Care UK or a different company as the primary care trust looks for the best deal.

Health bosses are inviting companies to come forward.

A Department of Health spokesperson said: "More than two million NHS patients have been treated at ISTCs. As a result, patients have had their lives improved by being able to access treatment quickly and safely.

"The latest patient surveys show that 96% of ISTC patients thought that their care was "excellent" or "very good".

Graeme Kendall, general manager at the Care UK Barlborough NHS Treatment Centre, said it had worked hard to help build awareness among Derbyshire's GPs.

But ultimately, he said, they could only operate on patients who were referred to them.

He also said that, when Barlborough was included in the NHS "choose and book" scheme recently, there was a "surge in demand" for operations as "word spread about its excellent reputation".