Limit growth on private care in NHS

10 Mar 05
Doctors have warned that limits must be set on the health service's use of the private sector, putting them in direct opposition to both Labour and the Conservatives.

11 March 2005

Doctors have warned that limits must be set on the health service's use of the private sector, putting them in direct opposition to both Labour and the Conservatives.

Launching Labour's mini-manifesto on health this week, Prime Minister Tony Blair announced he would purchase an additional 250,000 operations from the private sector if re-elected. This would raise the sector's share of NHS operations to between 7% and 8% (from 4% to 5% now).

Labour has promised the private sector 15% of NHS activity. Blair admitted this figure was 'arbitrary', and could be exceeded.

'This capacity will be used to treat NHS patients in line with NHS values – free at the point of use and always with the judgement based on clinical need, not ability to pay,' he said.

The prime minister said use of private hospitals, complemented by the government's NHS hospital building programme and patient choice, would reduce total waiting times to 18 weeks by 2008.

But the British Medical Association said strict limits must be set to protect NHS hospitals. It said 'spurious targets' for private provider use should not skew patient choice. 'Doctors are concerned that choice appeared to be little more than a euphemism for increased private involvement in health care and competition between institutions that provide care,' a spokesman said.

'Diverting investment from the NHS to the private sector will do little to solve the problems of the NHS and in the long term may worsen them by damaging mainstream health care.'

Shadow health secretary Andrew Lansley said Labour had failed to confront the real problems in the NHS.

'Doctors and nurses are fed up with government targets, interference and bureaucracy. They want to see NHS money getting to frontline services,' he added.

The Tories would reimburse patients who chose to go private by up to 50% of the assessed cost of an operation carried out on the NHS, which Labour claims would be a licence to queue-jump.

NHS Confederation chief executive Dame Gill Morgan said the health service was already tackling the 18-week target.

'There is no doubt that this is a challenging target, but NHS trusts have already demonstrated that they are capable of meeting new challenges by massively reducing both the number of patients on waiting lists and the length of time they wait for surgery,' she added.

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