Dennis Benson

Posts Tagged ‘Private Hospital’

Another beautiful golden day! The optimists among the chicken-breeders are talking excitedly of a summer to beat them all. The rest of us remember similar delight at this time last year! But we live for the day and this one is brilliant in every sense of the word. However, at least one of our number is not entirely happy. He has been told by his GP that there are now restrictions on NHS orthopaedic referrals and his chance of a hip operation is now remote. I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised since the massive Lansley cuts are slowly but surely taking the NHS performance back many years.

In fact a survey of GPs published yesterday found that cuts are being made not only in areas deemed non-urgent. Over half of the 500 family doctors questioned said that waiting times had gone up for musculoskeletal work, and 42% reported a rise in waits for neurology treatment. Almost a third say that there are now delays in cardiology and one in ten say that waiting times for cancer treatments are rising quickly.

Interestingly the survey was carried out by Spire Healthcare, the second largest private hospital group in the country. And they are not in the least depressed by what their friend Mr Lansley is doing. Dr Jean-Jacques de Gorter, clinical director of Spire, said yesterday that the increased use of the private sector now being enjoyed is to be expected “as a result of health secretary Andrew Lansley’s measures and efficiency savings”.  He reported that his group was already seeing waiting lists for elective admissions and diagnostics going up and patients are “likely to turn to the private sector”.

Spire claims from its survey that more patients are asking GPs about private treatment. It claims that a third of those surveyed plan to make more private referrals this year. Almost half (49%) are said to be asking their patients if they have private medical insurance.

The number of people with private insurance is actually flatlining or even dropping, as people are made redundant and lose the healthcare benefit that went with their job, but Dr De Gorter expects more to pay out of their own pockets as the NHS delays increase.

I honestly believe that, unless Lansley is stopped, the end of the NHS as we have known it is in sight. Private hospitals will lure top surgeons away from the NHS and will step up their GP-influencing campaigns. Of course this is one of the aims of the Conservative minister. Competition, he will argue, will lead to even better healthcare and higher standards. So far as the private sector is concerned that is correct but the massive flip side is that the NHS hospitals, starved of funding from basic work, will deteriorate and ultimately decline in numbers.

The end of the Lansley trail is plain to see. If you have expensive health insurance, or are relatively wealthy, you will notice little difference. If you don’t, you will probably die or at best suffer a lower quality of life.

If we regard that scenario as unduly pessimistic we will delude ourselves and betray generations to come!

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THOUGHTS FOR TODAY;  LUCK:   “Everything went right for him until the day he was born”….Victor Borge   “If it was raining soup, he’d be out with forks”…..Brendan Behan    “Just my luck. I was at the airport when my ship came in” ………Henny Youngman   “As one door closes another falls on top of you”…..Angus Deayton   “It always looks darkest just before it gets totally black”…….Charlie Brown    “Age does not diminish the extreme disappointment of having a scoop of ice cream fall from the cone”…..Jim Frieberg   “What I’m looking for is a blessing that’s not in disguise”…..Kitty O’Neill Collins  “I’m so unlucky that if I was to fall into a barrel of nipples I would come out sucking my thumb”……Freddie Starr

ANSWERS TO YESTERDAY’S QUIZ;  1.  Shane Fenton   2.  Gordon Sumner

TODAY’S QUESTIONS;   1. Where did troops fight for control of Islam’s holiest shrine?     2.Who went out to be Rhodesia’s last British governor?

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Amongst all the confusion and hoo-hah surrounding the Andrew Lansley proposed reform of the NHS, two items in the small print have slipped in almost unnoticed. Perhaps Mr Lansley is cleverer than we thought, admittedly not a difficult promotion. He is abolishing the cap limiting the proportion of income hospitals can earn from private medicine and, at the same time, abolishing targets for waiting times. Just pause and think it over. We could be back to the dreadful days of 18 months waiting times with the alternative of immediate treatment if you or your family can raise the cash.

Despite all the fairy tales about NHS funding being ring-fenced all leading Trusts are already facing crippling shortfalls and an ever growing volume of elderly patients. Suddenly they are offered a lifeline and already leading specialist hospitals are grasping the carrot. Manchester’s Christie hospital is Europe’s largest cancer centre and expects to treble its private income to £30 million within a decade by making a deal with HGA, the world’s biggest private hospital group. Caroline Shaw is quoted as saying that staff had voiced doubts but are reassured that ‘we are getting new facilities and a 50-50 split of income’. The Royal Brompton and Harefield, the UK’s largest cardio-respiratory centre is already offering patients a city guide and suggests trips to the ‘high-end shopping facilities of Sloane Street and Harrods.

Straws in the wind and other Trusts are busy planning a vast increase in their private practice. Until now most offered a few siderooms giving increased privacy but little else different to standard NHS treatment. Taking a private room could only be negotiated after an appointment was made. Once the few rooms become many it is inevitable that a distinct and seperate service will be on offer when your GP refers you. And remember that there will no longer be waiting list targets covering emergencies ( 10 days) or needed but not life-threatening surgery ( 18 weeks).

Already clinicians are under enormous pressure to meet those targets as a result of the reduced doctor’s hours ordered by the EU. Already operating theatres are short-staffed and a new survey of 980 consultants and trainee surgeons reveals that 61% of consultants are now having to operate without assistants and 66% of trainees are receiving significantly less training since they are having to stand-in on ward rounds. Now the very same surgeons are to be asked to provide private services giving immediate treatment and there can be only one outcome. NHS service waiting lists will grow longer and longer and the families of those who cannot afford what will undoubtedly be extortionate insurance payments will be faced with the moral dilemma of raising the money somehow or watching someone suffer and, perhaps, die.

For many years there has been a debate about the introduction of the private sector into NHS provision, indeed the Labour government made various attempts to do just that. But those proposals involved mainly the UK-based private hospitals, none of whom offer intensive medicne or care. What we face here is something far more draconian. The NHS hospitals themselves are being steered toward the provision of their own total services being available for cash if patients have the funds.

For weeks the arguments have raged about Lansley’s slightly bizaare plan to hand commissioning to GPs. Suddenly it is clear that we face something easier to do but far more devastating in its implications. It was quite one thing for the well heeled to be able to pay for immediate treatment, with all the trimmings, for a routine knee operation, quite another to tolerate the same back-pocket power to those whose priority will put other lives  at risk.

When Angus Maude remarked at the weekend that this coalition government is being more radical than Thatcher or Blair he was right. It is turning the clock back generations to the day when how much you had determined whether or not you survived.

Of course we all know that as the popular song has it money can’t buy you love, but it has always been able to cover most things. Last week’s example was provided by Sky’s headline-grabbing deal with HBO which gave them the exclusive rights to the US channel’s archive as well as future shows and a first-look deal on all co-productions. Slowly but surely the pay-to-view media company is acquiring the exclusive rights to most things. That means that unless you can afford the monthly bills you are excluded.

But we have to live with this however unfair it seems, especially in the case of events such as Test Matches. Deservedly or otherwise one tenth of the population has the bulk of the nation’s wealth and whilst their money can’t buy them love it certainly can ensure access to most other things. Up to now that has not included acute medical treatment.

Soon it will and a poor diagnosis will take millions metaphorically back to a time when higwaymen cried ‘your money or your life’. To the extent that they have self understanding is this really what those who voted Lib Dem intended?

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AND ANOTHER THING;   Today’s Daily Express carries a front page story revealing that house prices are due to climb by a whopping 20 per cent with thousands lifted out of negative equity. It made a nice change from stories of Princess Di but is it true? Not according to the weekend financial pages which carried gloomy forecasts of sharp falls. We can only wonder who is right and pray that the experts variously referred to are not estate agents, the only profession keeping MPs from the bottom of the popularity league tables.

By contrast the Daily Mail carries a front page picture of Bill Clinton at his daughter’s wedding. It seems that Chelsea obliged him to lose 20 lbs before walking her down the aisle. Now that we really needed to know! And it isn’t cricket!

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