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‘Patient choice’ could drain NHS of cash

Government plans to give all NHS patients a right to choose free treatment in a private hospital could lead to a spiral of staff and money flowing from the NHS, health staff have warned.

Health secretary Alan Milburn announced a dramatic three-year roll-out of schemes to allow patients more choice over where they are treated in a keynote speech last month. His proposals follow the results of two pilot schemes allowing patients who have waited six months for heart surgery – and in London for cataract surgery too – to opt for treatment at an alternative hospital in the UK private sector or abroad.

Announcing several new schemes extending the same choice to different specialties and other parts of England, Mr Milburn pledged that within three years all patients needing elective surgery would be given the option at the point of referral by their GP of treatment in four or five hospitals, including both NHS and private providers. Like the delayed discharge reforms, the proposals are based on initiatives in Sweden.

Mr Milburn said: ‘For too long, for too many, the choice has been to pay or wait. Our choice is for the NHS but a reformed NHS.’

Health service union Unison has dismissed the move as a plan to increase private hospital use. Allowing patients to travel to other NHS hospitals for surgery would make sense if spare capacity existed, said Unison’s head of health Karen Jennings. But in reality, there was no spare capacity so that patients would be offered a choice only between their local NHS hospital and the private sector.

She said: ‘This reliance on the private sector, unless halted, will lead to a vicious circle with precious staff and money being drained away from the NHS and the end result will be no choice.’

Of the 5,000 patients waiting longer than six months for heart surgery under the scheme since July last year, a total 3,700 were deemed clinically suitable to travel for faster treatment but of these, less than half (1,700) accepted.