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Insideperspective - 10:59 - You are right that the private providers will have only been paid tariff however to presume that this move in treatment would not be an issue from the wider perspective is a narrow view of the total health economy.

Any senior manager in the NHS will know that private providers have strict inclusion criteria on who they will operate on, normally centred around ASA grade, complications and comorbidities, treatment and age - solely because patients that meet these characteristics are cheaper and straight forward to treat. To move this activity away from the NHS is the shift which will see the NHS shouldering the cost of loss making patients and the private providers creaming away the profit of the straight forward elective cases which in years past offset the loses of sicker, older elective patients and trauma.

I would partially agree with Anon 2:06, the cost may have been better spent in the NHS depending on the efficiency of the controlling Trust but definitely the surplus created from these patients would have better served the NHS economy than filling stakeholders pockets in the private sector.