Under the plans, submitted by private hospitals, the independent sector could treat up to 2.5 million more patients, with some treatment starting in weeks.
The private sector investment would be used to build a string of diagnostic centres for NHS patients across the country, tackling delays in cancer diagnosis, and to develop new surgery units and intensive care facilities.
That it’s clearly and obviously sensible won’t stop the shrieks now, will it. Be like introducing chasubles and thuribles into a Methodist church – it is indeed a religion, Our NHS.
A nice test for Streeting. If he accepts, he’ll be labelled as an apostate. If he rejects it, his life will get harder in lots of different ways.
Quite clever move by the private sector to offer him the devil’s bargain just now.
I agree with Simon, this probably heralds an enormous influx of private equity investment. Gotta have enough hospitals to treat all our new arrivals, they’re not used to waiting several years.
Under Labour it’s ok though. After all it worked well in the past – thank you Mr Brown.
Gotta shut down Smith & Nephew, the NHS should be making its own bandages. Gotta shut down O&H, the NHS should be making its own ambulances. Gotta shut down GlaxoSmithlekin, the NHS should be making its own drugs. Gotta shut down ICI, the NHS should be making its own paint. Gotta….
Six or so years back I needed a minor op for a non threatening but extremely painful condition. The doctor told me not to hold my breath as there was a huge backlog of muscular skeletal ops so it would be years. A week or two later I was amazed to get an appointment for pre-op at the local private hospital as the NHS. The covering letter explained that the NHS had contracted them out to clear the backlog.
The reception area at the private hospital was packed with NHS patients there for the pre ops. Their organization was incredible and we all quickly flowed few the three process steps so I was soon done. On the day of my op it was quieter but still busy. They had even asked me to come in a couple of hours earlier as they had a gap in their schedule they wanted to fill. From the difference in numbers it was clear that that the single pre op day had been for multiple operating days.
The whole process was quick and effective. The only non efficient part was that for every letter the private hospital sent me the NHS sent me two. All three of the letters said the same thing but with different phrasing. The two NHS ones went straight in the bin as neither gave additional information. My guess was that despite the clinical part of the NHS passing the work over, two competing NHS admin teams both wanted in on the action.
The obvious question is why the hell the Tories didn’t use all that extra money to do this when half “our wonderful NHS” was on bloody strike 🙁
@andyf
I had a similar experience with my cataract ops. The first was done at an NHS hospital; after five changes of appointment (two of which turned up in the same postal delivery) I was required to arrive at 7.30am where I was gathered with 10 other patients, all given the same time. I was eventually prepped at 4pm. My time was clearly not important to the NHS.
The second op was done at a private facility, contracted to the NHS. I was prepped within five minutes of my arrival and was out the door in record time. We need more of this.
I once went to a private hospital because of carpal tunnel syndrome – it was interfering with my work and neither the NHS nor my employer’s Occupational Health outfit was remotely interested in timely treatment.
(i) Consultant inspects me, tentatively confirms diagnosis but says he’d like an X-ray to rule out another possibility.
Me: when can that be done?
(ii) Now; take this request downstairs to the X-ray room.
Me to X-ray tech: when do I hear outcome?
(iii) Him: now – carry this form and photo back upstairs to your Consultant.
(iv) Consultant: good, I was right. You just need an injection and, before you ask, I’ll do it now.
Even better, when he discovered I had no insurance and was paying out of my own pocket he arranged the follow-up consultation on the NHS. And he chose the right timing for it.
Whereas some NHS treatment for a neck problem at about that time went:
After considerable delay, see Consultant. Consultant books me an X-ray appointment a few days later and another appointment with her yet another few days later. When I show up for latter she says “Sorry, your X-ray isn’t on file they must have lost it”. Envy of the fucking world.
@ rupert
I thought that they had … maybe it was just a proposal that got nowhere because the NHS GPs refused to refer patients to a private hospital.
This is exactly the sort of thing that the Tories should have been doing – creating a critical mass of private healthcare provision, especially in the urgent and emergency care areas, so that a more viable private healthcare system could evolve in a way it never can while the NHS behemoth is sitting on its chest.
The only way to ‘reform’ the NHS is by stealth – create a parallel private system that mirrors what the NHS offers (rather than the private system we have today that cannot cope with emergency and critical care) , which can then offer a full ‘NHS replacement’ service to private customers. Then when enough of the population are used to paying for their healthcare in cash, the NHS can be swapped over to a European style social insurance model.
The parallel is the BBC – the reason its being made irrelevant and the licence fee will be gone in a decade or so is that technology has destroyed the ‘sit round the telly and watch it’ model that the BBC relied on. Modern generations will be watching what they want when they want it, and won’t be paying the BBC for the privilege, so the licence fee revenue will continue to decline in real terms. This is how you reform State monoliths, you don’t attack them head on, you undermine their foundations, wait til they are wobbly, then strike.
Jim, it seems that a significant proportion of the population is now accustomed to paying for its healthcare through “health insurance”. The reception room at the private hospital this afternoon had dozens of middle-aged and/or elderly people, none of whom looked rich (quite a few looked working class but as plumbers earn more than teachers this does not indicate their level of income/wealth). The hospital clearly had a mixture of “insured” and “self-pay” patients willing to pay for procedures that the NHS refused to pay for despite the necessity (to the patient, not the bureaucrat).
The private system does not currently offer emergency services because the general public still believes that the NHS provides reliable emergency services so does not choose to pay for them: this will only change when the repeated failure of NHS emergency services becomes a “national scandal” that even the BBC ceaeses to hide,
“The private system does not currently offer emergency services because the general public still believes that the NHS provides reliable emergency services so does not choose to pay for them: this will only change when the repeated failure of NHS emergency services becomes a “national scandal” that even the BBC ceaeses to hide,”
I don’t think the general public think the NHS emergency service is any better than anything else the NHS offers, its just they can’t currently pay for private emergency services, so they are stuck with the NHS ones. Its chicken and egg – the customer can’t pay for what isn’t there, and the supplier won’t build it because there’s no guarantee the demand is there.
This is what the Tories should have been trying to create – a private fully comprehensive healthcare system parallel to the NHS, that can provide the same medical services as the NHS can. Private ambulances, private A&E, private intensive care. Once the private system has a comprehensive healthcare package to offer, plenty of people WILL pay for it, because they know the NHS is so sh*t.
@ Jim,
OK it may be that your neighbours have wised up to the NHS but where I live it seems to be universally implicitly accepted that you will get an ambulance if you dial 999 – it’s headline news if you don’t, and complaints about A&E are centred on the occasionally horrendous waiting times with NHS apologists blaming them on extra workloads due to e.g. football hooliganism (that there is no professional football club within ten miles is ignored)
@Jim – “they can’t currently pay for private emergency services, so they are stuck with the NHS ones.”
Emergency services are a poor fit to commercial provision. When you’re lying unconscious in the road, you are in no fit state to exercise the kind of choice that is essential for a free market. Even for lesser injuries, the urgency makes a proper choice impractical.
However, there is some private provision of emergency services anyway – run by charity. See https://theairambulanceservice.org.uk/ for example – no government funding. Similarly, the RNLI. And, of course, if you need to call out more specialist rescuers such as mountain rescue, they’ll be volunteers.
Government and commercial are not the only forms of provision.