According to the private manager, this model allowed the Government “24% savings per year”. Lusíadas Saúde decided not to participate in the last tender launched for this PPP.
You 14 years of the Lusíadas Public-Private Partnership (PPP) at Cascais Hospital, which ends on 31 December, saved the State around 230 million euros, advanced the health sector group to Lusa. Lusíadas Saúde decided not to participate in the last contest launched for this PPP, claiming that the proposal presented by the Government did not guarantee financial sustainability over the eight years provided for in the contract.
A few days after leaving the management of Hospital de Cascais, the private group estimates “at around 230 million euros” the savings that management in the PPP model allowed the State, based on “in independent studies??
This model allowed the Government to “24% savings per year?? “That is, every four years a year ago in which the Hospital has zero costs for the State. It operates for four years at the same cost as other public hospitals and for the fifth year it costs nothing”, said the executive president (CEO) of the group, Vasco Antunes Pereira, to the Lusa agency.
The partnership between the State and Lusíadas for the Hospital that serves the population of the municipality of Cascais and part of Sintra started in 2008, with a contract lasting 10 years, but it was extended several times. Over the 14 years, the hospital performed a total of 1.9 million queries134,000 surgeries, 2.1 million emergency room visits and 32,000 deliveries in its maternity ward, according to data provided by Lusíadas.
Within the scope of the new tender launched by the Government, the PPP for the Cascais Hospital was, in the meantime, already awarded this year to the Spanish group Ribera Salud??
“positive” balance
Vasco Antunes Pereira made Lusa a “positive” balance this partnership for Lusíadas and for the Government, but first of all for the users that the hospital serves. “Everything that was the objective set by the Government when it launched the PPP was largely achievedthat is, meeting the health needs that the municipality of Cascais and part of Sintra needed”, stressed Vasco Antunes Pereira.
As he said, the result of the partnership that is now ending is also positive for the Governmentfrom the perspective of “becoming more efficient in management of a hospital and guarantee levels of quality and excellence”, which was demonstrated by the fact that Hospital de Cascais was classified, for several years, as top performance by regulatory bodies.
Vasco Antunes Pereira also stressed that the hospital “never had news over the closing of an emergencyof deviation from [doentes] by the Guidance Center for Urgent Patients (CODU) and closure of maternity wards”, since the contractual model of the PPP guarantees the tools that benefit your management??
This is the case of hiring health professionals, an area in which PPPs allow greater flexibility“bringing to the table contractual models that are much more adapted to today’s needs than the more rigid model” of public management hospitals, he said.
“We have one broad sense of accomplishment“, said the head of Lusíadas Saúde, for whom the management of this hospital gave the group “a lot of learning and a lot of growth for the opportunity to work with the National Health Service” (SNS).
Sustainability conditions
Vasco Antunes Pereira also reiterated that the reasons for not moving forward with a proposal for a new PPP in Cascais were “sustainability nature economical“, after analyzing the conditions of the new contract in 2021. “Our assessment was that the way in which the State was considering the investment that needed to be made would probably question the economic sustainability of the project”, he added.
In view of this, the Lusíadas Group did not “equate even risk or question the quality of the health care” it provides, Vasco Antunes Pereira also assured. Despite this decision, the CEO of the group said that he is “not at all back turned“, given the possibility of positioning itself for new partnerships in the health sector.
“We would like to to have the opportunity again to form a new partnership, but we have to ensure that all stakeholders are able to guarantee its sustainability” in the process, stressed the business manager.
After recognizing that the current PPP model “it is very formal“, Vasco Antunes Pereira advised that, in the eventual launch of new hospital management PPPs, not only the State saves should be taken into account, but also the sustainability conditions of the private partners. “See the example of the other PPPs in which, once the process is complete, the private partners were not available to continue”, highlighted the executive president of Lusíadas.
