Choose and Book- your new right for NHS treatment
Most patients in England gain a historic new right this week - to be treated in a private hospital at National Health Service expense. The arrival of "patient choice" - the right to choose, initially from at least four hospitals, and by 2008 from any hospital prepared to meet NHS standards and prices - is a symbolic moment in the Labour government's endeavour to use market forces to drive up health service performance.
Though quite how this policy will actually work in practise- with the introduction of the Choose and Book IT disaster- which it is currently hoped that it will be delivered 12 months late in December 2006, is anyone's guess.
The involvement of the private sector is also a sign that the government is beginning to think of the NHS more as a tax-funded insurance operation and less as one that has not only to fund care, but provide it.
Primary care trusts have to include the centrally contracted independent treatment centres, where they exist, on the choice menu.
They must also include private hospitals prepared to offer treatment at the NHS tariff if the existing range of NHS providers does not offer a large enough choice.
In practice, most primary care trusts have run tenders for private hospitals to be included. That has resulted in "most private providers who wanted to get on the menu, getting on the menu", according to the independent sector's trade body the Independent Healthcare Forum.
Not all independent providers are offering care in all specialities. It does mean, however, that "in most parts of the country there will be an independent sector choice", the forum said.
A survey of more than 1,000 adults conducted for Nuffield Hospitals shows four out of five do not know that patient choice is arriving next week.
It equally shows that 60 per cent, given the choice, would opt for a private hospital, with only 18 per cent positively choosing an NHS hospital and 22 per cent saying they do not know.
The initially limited number of private facilities on offer means those figures are unlikely to be borne out in practice. But they imply that NHS- run hospitals, a quarter of which are forecasting an overspend for this year, face strong competition for waiting list patients.
A limiting factor may be that three quarters of GPs, in a smaller survey carried out for Nuffield, say they lack sufficient knowledge of the independent sector to advise patients on whether to go private.
But surveys by Bupa and others suggest patients perceive private hospitals have lower rates for hospital-acquired infections.
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/3b3a275c-79a2-11da-8d99-0000779e2340.html
Though quite how this policy will actually work in practise- with the introduction of the Choose and Book IT disaster- which it is currently hoped that it will be delivered 12 months late in December 2006, is anyone's guess.
The involvement of the private sector is also a sign that the government is beginning to think of the NHS more as a tax-funded insurance operation and less as one that has not only to fund care, but provide it.
Primary care trusts have to include the centrally contracted independent treatment centres, where they exist, on the choice menu.
They must also include private hospitals prepared to offer treatment at the NHS tariff if the existing range of NHS providers does not offer a large enough choice.
In practice, most primary care trusts have run tenders for private hospitals to be included. That has resulted in "most private providers who wanted to get on the menu, getting on the menu", according to the independent sector's trade body the Independent Healthcare Forum.
Not all independent providers are offering care in all specialities. It does mean, however, that "in most parts of the country there will be an independent sector choice", the forum said.
A survey of more than 1,000 adults conducted for Nuffield Hospitals shows four out of five do not know that patient choice is arriving next week.
It equally shows that 60 per cent, given the choice, would opt for a private hospital, with only 18 per cent positively choosing an NHS hospital and 22 per cent saying they do not know.
The initially limited number of private facilities on offer means those figures are unlikely to be borne out in practice. But they imply that NHS- run hospitals, a quarter of which are forecasting an overspend for this year, face strong competition for waiting list patients.
A limiting factor may be that three quarters of GPs, in a smaller survey carried out for Nuffield, say they lack sufficient knowledge of the independent sector to advise patients on whether to go private.
But surveys by Bupa and others suggest patients perceive private hospitals have lower rates for hospital-acquired infections.
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/3b3a275c-79a2-11da-8d99-0000779e2340.html
posted by Drs Search at
9:45 AM
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