Independent Treatment Centres not the solution for the NHS, warns BMA leader
Speaking at the conference of Honorary Secretaries of BMA Divisions in Edinburgh today (Friday 18 February 2005), Dr Sam Everington, Deputy Chairman of the BMA (UK) warned that the Westminster Government’s continuing push for private sector involvement in the provision of NHS services could spread to the other countries of the UK.
He said:
“We face a fundamental shift in the balance between public and private provision. At present this is only a vision for England, but the other countries of the United Kingdom cannot fail to be affected by the wind of change blowing through the English Health System. How odd that we should be defending an integrated NHS against a government that created it in the beginning.”
Commenting on the increasing reliance on Independent Treatment Centres, Dr Everington added:
“They are a wonderful idea on paper. Patients get more choice and quicker treatment, NHS capacity is freed and the government meets its targets. Everyone wins.
“But they are forcing NHS hospitals to compete with the private sector and in a market, as we know, there are winners and losers. NHS trusts will lose money. The natural consequences are for units to close. Some local hospitals will then become increasingly unsustainable.
“Patients get sick around the clock, seven days a week and hospitals must be fully resourced and staffed to cope with all their needs. At 3am in the morning patients go to NHS hospitals because they provide both emergency and integrated care. It is therefore misleading for John Reid to claim that treatment centres provide services faster than NHS hospitals, when for a large number of patients; they provide no service at all.
“Is this more choice for patients – when often the first choice for patients is to be seen at their local hospital?”
“We face a fundamental shift in the balance between public and private provision. At present this is only a vision for England, but the other countries of the United Kingdom cannot fail to be affected by the wind of change blowing through the English Health System. How odd that we should be defending an integrated NHS against a government that created it in the beginning.”
Commenting on the increasing reliance on Independent Treatment Centres, Dr Everington added:
“They are a wonderful idea on paper. Patients get more choice and quicker treatment, NHS capacity is freed and the government meets its targets. Everyone wins.
“But they are forcing NHS hospitals to compete with the private sector and in a market, as we know, there are winners and losers. NHS trusts will lose money. The natural consequences are for units to close. Some local hospitals will then become increasingly unsustainable.
“Patients get sick around the clock, seven days a week and hospitals must be fully resourced and staffed to cope with all their needs. At 3am in the morning patients go to NHS hospitals because they provide both emergency and integrated care. It is therefore misleading for John Reid to claim that treatment centres provide services faster than NHS hospitals, when for a large number of patients; they provide no service at all.
“Is this more choice for patients – when often the first choice for patients is to be seen at their local hospital?”
http://www.bma.org.uk/ap.nsf/Content/PR-Independent+Treatment+Centres+not+the+solution+for+the+NHS%2C+warns+BMA+leader+-+18+Feb+2005
posted by Dr Search- Principal Consultant at the Search Clinic at
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