NHS to double private patients - Burnham
Some NHS hospitals are planning to use new freedoms granted them by the coalition government to double the number of patients they treat privately this year, shadow health secretary Andy Burnham has warned.
Mr Burnham said that the new freedom for hospitals in England to earn 49 per cent of their income from private work would “damage the character and culture” of the NHS and take it closer to an American model.
He will today publish documents obtained through freedom of information requests, which he said would show some hospitals are planning to make full use of the change, which came into effect earlier this week.
At a fringe meeting hosted by the New Statesman on the eve of his keynote speech to Labour’s Manchester conference, Mr Burnham said that the government’s NHS reforms were creating a “fragmented” health system at a time when mounting pressures from an ageing population meant integration was needed.
“In this broken-down world where each hospital is on its own, making its own budgets, they are going to start using these new freedoms,” he warned.
“Already, there are hospitals that are planning to double private patients this year.
“That measure on its own will immediately change the culture of English hospitals. They will start growing into the American model of private and public. It’s a worrying thing.”
Mr Burnham said that the reforms introduced by former health secretary Andrew Lansley had already produced “random rationing and a postcode lottery running riot”.
And he said that contracts were being signed this week to take more than 300 community services out of the NHS altogether.
In a parody of a Tory election poster featuring David Cameron’s promise to protect the NHS, Mr Burnham said he may launch a poster with the PM’s face alongside the slogan: “I cut the NHS, not the deficit.”
Mr Burnham said he would oppose “to the hilt” proposals for regional pay in the NHS, which he said would lead to hospitals poaching staff from one another and drive costs up in the long run.
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Readers' comments (8)
Patrick Newman | 3-Oct-2012 5:37 pm
"“In this broken-down world where each hospital is on its own, making its own budgets, they are going to start using these new freedoms,” he warned." Yes but who devised Foundation Trusts which was a major step to taking the national out of the NHS.
Under the current £20bn 'challenge' it is inevitable that trusts will want to exploit their new found capacity for additional private income and this will over time inevitably distort priorities and resource allocation.
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Anonymous | 3-Oct-2012 6:08 pm
I totally agree with Any Burnhams concerns. It must be remembered that the NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE receives it core funding from the public funds. This core funding from public funds gives the private contracted service providers capital without which they would be unable to provide a service fit for purpose. If, as it apears from the evidence provided that this two tier system continues the title NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE is no longer viable.
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Anonymous | 4-Oct-2012 10:36 am
Totally outrageous scaremongering as usual. A mixed public private provision and funding model is the norm in virtually every other developed nation, not just America.
Andy Burnham and his supporters need to realise we no longer live in some socialist utopia designed in the 1940s and instead needs to recognise that some NHS hospitals are well placed to take sizeable chunks of the private markets away from the likes of Spire and to do so to the benfit of their NHS services.
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Anonymous | 4-Oct-2012 3:00 pm
Acute Trusts are set up to provide NHS services - it is their only raison d'etre. If NHS hospitals have the capacity to take on private patients, they should certainly do so -- BUT only if they have NO waiting lists at all for NHS work.
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Anonymous | 4-Oct-2012 4:17 pm
Ever heard of evolution Anon 3pm
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Andrew Whiting | 4-Oct-2012 5:21 pm
From today's health insurance magazine
http://www.hi-mag.com/health-insurance/product-area/pmi/article408875.ece?src=bulletin-thursday
'Private hospitals see record admission levels as NHS work soars'
Perhaps the NHS is right to compete for private hospitals core market
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Insideperspective | 4-Oct-2012 9:57 pm
NHS Trusts who assume that a) consultants will want to take the financial risk fo doing private work in a PPU, b) patients will want to be treated there c) insurers will put them on networks, d) that there is unmet demand in the private market and e) that they are capable of competing profitably with private hospitals, are naive in the extreme. NHS Trusts shoudl stikc to the core business of treating NHS patients. Where there is a market opportunity they should lease space to private hospital operators to run PPUs on the NHS site.
the reason that private hospitals outside London are full of NHS patients is because there has been a significant drop in private demand
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Anonymous | 5-Oct-2012 1:49 pm
Insiderperspective is spot on.
I have often onderwed why NHS hospitals think people will pay to go somewhere they can go for free when if they really want to pay they can choose a posh private hospital instead.
When you add in the fact that the private health market has been in decline for many years I think "naive in the extreme" is absolutely right.
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