A row over using private centres to help cut NHS waiting times has deepened after a report by academics found the company running the only such facility in Scotland may have been paid up to £3m for patients who did not receive treatment.

Experts at the Centre for International Public Health Policy at the University of Edinburgh found that in the first 13 months after the Scottish Regional Treatment Centre (SRTC) began accepting patients, it carried out work worth only 18% of its £5.6m annual contract for referrals.

Some 831 procedures were done between December 1, 2006, and December 31, 2007 - 32% of the total number of referrals it is contracted for annually - and the researchers warned there was "no evidence" to support claims that the centre, run by private firm Netcare, was "efficient or good value for money".

But NHS Tayside, which is responsible for the contract, insisted the figures were "fundamentally inaccurate" and said it was writing to the British Medical Journal, which published the analysis, to "clarify the activity undertaken at the SRTC".

Professor Allyson Pollock, director of the Centre for International Public Health Policy, said: "It is very easy to say we are fundamentally wrong, but our paper has been through peer review - it has taken two years to obtain the data and undertake the analysis.

"We have used all the available data. If they say we are wrong, then they should show us the data, including data on actual patients referred and seen, and provide a full account of the money that has been paid."

The arrangement for the centre at Stracathro Hospital, near Brechin, Angus, was announced by the previous Scottish Executive, which said it would help reduce waiting times. The contract was not released initially but after an appeal under the Freedom of Information Act, details of the £18.7m three-year deal were made public.

A review by PricewaterhouseCoopers, published last year, concluded the centre was 11% better value for money than NHS hospitals.

But the research by Professor Pollock and her colleague Graham Kirkwood, who analysed the contract as well as statistics published by the Information Services Division, challenged the review's findings, saying it had looked only at referrals and not treatments.

They pointed out the contract allows Netcare to be paid up to 90% of the monthly referral value, regardless of the volume of referrals made and said Netcare may have received up to £3m for patients who did not receive treatment.

Professor Pollock, who is an outspoken critic of privatisation of the NHS, said: "The problem is it has not been properly evaluated. It does appear as if money has been paid for work that has not really been done."

She suggested around £927m of the £1.5billion spent on similar contracts south of the border could have been paid out for patients who did not receive treatment.

She said: "This is a really big issue. If the private sector is not doing the work this means the NHS gets a triple whammy - less money, more patients and dealing with complications from the private sector."

In an editorial in the British Medical Journal, its deputy editor Tony Delamothe highlighted previous comments made by Professor Pollock criticising the Private Finance Initiative schemes and said the subsequent fall-out from such initiatives "makes her analysis look prescient".

He added: "So we should at least take notice of what Professor Pollock has since turned her attention to."

But Gerry Marr, chief operating officer of NHS Tayside, said: "The figures quoted in the BMJ report are fundamentally inaccurate, as is the analysis of the activity at the Scottish Regional Treatment Centre at Stracathro.

"NHS Tayside is in the process of writing to the BMJ to challenge the report and clarify the activity undertaken at the SRTC.

"As was reported to the NHS Tayside Delivery Unit last month, the SRTC contract is delivering on value for money, activity and quality."

The contract at Stracathro runs out next February and in a recent parliamentary answer given at Holyrood, Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, who is also Scottish Health Secretary, said the government would consider future arrangements for the centre once a formal review had been completed.

2:01am today

By CAROLYN CHURCHILL