Private health firm gives GPs operation price list for impatient patients
Our work on the challenges facing rural health settings is in part at least focused on the sort of staff shortages that underpin stories like this:
A private healthcare company has sent letters to hundreds of GPs setting out a price list of operations they could offer their patients to beat NHS delays and restrictions.
Care UK, which runs nine centres offering treatment on the NHS, said it intended to use spare theatre time to provide “self pay” procedures ranging from earwax removal to hip replacements.
The company said it was trialling the scheme at two treatment centres in the west of England but insisted core work at the sites would remain NHS referrals.
The move has, however, alarmed some GPs and health campaigners who fear it is another example of creeping privatisation in the NHS.
The procedures are being offered at the Emersons Green treatment centre near Bristol and a second centre in Devizes in Wiltshire. The list of treatments on offer ranges from earwax removal (£160) to hip replacements at just under £9,000. Other procedures being offered include cataract surgery, tonsillectomies and vasectomies.
Mike Campbell of campaign group Protect Our NHS said: “It is totally wrong that hard-pressed GPs are being encouraged to recommend their patients to a private company where patients will be paying when they should be getting their treatments free.