BBC News – NHS accused of bias against private sector.
So why am I not surprised at this news?
God help the NHS if it was ever subjected to healthy competition from a Private Sector offering to carry out the same operations at NHS costs. No wonder they are frightened it would impact on NHS hospitals, with their grossly inefficient management structures.
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Author: coldwaterjohn
CWJ travelled extensively with his family, having worked in eleven countries over thirty years. A keen photographer, holding a Private Pilot's Licence, he focuses mainly on landscape and aerial imagery. Having worked in the Middle East extensively he follows developments in that region with particular interest, and views with growing concern, the radicalisation flowing from Islamic fundamentalism, and the intolerance for opposing views, stemming from it.
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Boadicea's Chariot 
Don’t forget, cwj, that the private sector does not run to A&E departments. Any sudden emergency after surgery in a private hospital may need to be rushed to the nearest NHS emergency department. Seems a bit unfair. It’s rather like people who go private, here or abroad, for cosmetic surgery and then expect the NHS to step in when a post-operative problem occurs. Why should the NHS have to pick up the tab and deal with a problem not of its making?
Absolutely agree, Sheona.
Private medicine “cherry-picks. Bupa and etc do not want to know about the chronic conditions, geriatrics or emergencies.
CWJ.
I agree with you about inefficient management structures though.l The frustration of dedicated front-line medical staff is pretty admirable considering. My daughter is one of them, and she is frustrated with the lack of resources, and red-tape.
The NHS management are complaining about private hospitals carrying out operations on behalf of the NHS at NHS prices, the impact of which would be to shorten waiting periods for customers (i.e. patients). What sort of upside-down thinking is it that wants to sabotage anything which provides better/quicker service to the patient?
I recently had a small op for skin cancer (basel cell carcinoma, the least bad kind – it stays in one place). On the back of the appointment letter was an ad saying that I could have the same treatment privately at the same hospital and I wouldn’t have to wait so long.
Guess what I did?
My sister advised me, just before I had my son, that the best place to give birth would be any major NHS city labour ward. She said it was by far and away safer than any home birth, local maternity units and even private health care – simply by dint of being the only place you could be guaranteed a team of 12 specialist doctors being parachuted in in full ER mode at the drop of a hat.
As it happens, that is exactly what I ended up needing. After days of being neglected on the maternity ward which sort of caused the problem in the first place, to an extent…
Of course the NHS disapproves of private management! It means clear objectives, zero-based budgets and rigorous audits!
I gain the impression that the point being missed by some readers is not the NHS vs. Private argument as in choice by patient to pay for private treatment or not, but that private hospitals are prepared to help reduce NHS waiting lists by performing operations on NHS patients at NHS prices, payable by the NHS, NOT the patient. It is this that NHS management are resisting.
CMJ – your point is fair and correct. My wife works in the private sector and they simply get the answer “no” from the NHS no matter whether the patient would benefit or not. They won’t even enter into dialogue with the private sector who are in a position to provide a better quality of service for the same price. Madness.
Your point #7, cwj, does not negate what I said about emergencies. I agree that the NHS managers are foolish (ça va sans dire) to turn down the chance of shortening a patient’s waiting time. But if something goes wrong and the patient has to be rushed to a NHS emergency department, does the private sector then reimburse the NHS?