From April 2017, the UK’s Private Healthcare Information Network (PHIN) will go live with a mammoth website representing nearly 2 million datapoints covering the output of 14,000 consultant doctors with private practice at over 500 hospitals. Patients will be able to search for hospitals or doctors by procedure and make immediate comparisons on essential quality measures.

Adopting NHS measures will facilitate direct and fair comparison of standards between the public and private sectors. That will make the UK one of very few countries where such comparison is possible.