Private contracts destabilise NHS claim Doctors

NHS bosses are forcing doctors to refer patients to private centres for fast-track treatment while imposing longer waiting times on local hospitals, it has emerged. The move has been condemned by the British Medical Association, GPs and surgeons, who say that a "two-tier" health service is being established to prop up privately-run centres, which were introduced by the Government with the aim of helping the NHS.

It also makes a mockery of the Government's much-vaunted "patient choice" policy, they claim.

One hospital consultant, who did not wish to be named, said: "This is totally destabilising the local services."

In one instance, GPs in Basingstoke, Hampshire, have been told to divert people who need routine hip and knee operations away from North Hampshire Hospital in Basingstoke and to surgical centres run by Capio, a Swedish company.

Waiting times for surgery at the Capio centres in Reading and Salisbury are as short as six weeks and a maximum of 10 weeks. But health bosses are at the same time imposing a "go slow" on orthopædic surgery at North Hampshire Hospital by refusing to fund routine hip and knee surgery if it is carried out before patients have waited 16 weeks.

One GP said: "The business with Capio is a disgrace. We have been told that operations will be done extremely quickly… but there are a whole lot of people waiting longer than that on the local hospital waiting list.

"I don't understand why they can't invest this money in the hospital service itself."

Documents seen by The Sunday Telegraph show a similar "go slow" policy in Coventry and Warwickshire, where primary care trusts (PCT) specified waiting times of 20 weeks for routine surgery by March 2007.

The "commissioning intentions" document states: "Where waiting times are lower than the maximum waiting time trajectory these should be extended to the maximum at a consultant and speciality level. The PCTs will not fund any over-performance generated as a result of enhanced waiting times."

A spokesman for North Hampshire PCT said that about 120 patients would be operated on under the Capio deal.

Taken from:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/12/10/nhs10.xml

Health Direct notes that Doctors understandably don't have much faith in Labour's much vaunted Choose and Book system.

On June 22, 05 Health Direct noted: Doctors reject IT Choose and book- "It's cobblers, are we doctors or travel agents?" when GPs voted to oppose the new Patients' IT "choose and book" system, citing numerous objections.

The Doctors had met at the British Medical Association's Local Medical Committee conference in London June 05 and noted that the IT system supporting patient choice impinges on consultations- without offering patients genuine options.

East Yorkshire GP Dr Andrew Green said: 'GPs are in favour of choice. Being opposed to choose and book is not the same as being opposed to choice.'

Wirral GP Dr Nev Bradley said the public already had a clear perception of choose and book. 'It's cobblers,' he said. 'Are we doctors or travel agents?'

Mike Pringle, professor of general practice at Nottingham University and one of the clinical leads for Connecting for Health, the agency running the national IT programme, admitted that choose and book is not currently fit for purpose.

He said: 'It's not good enough for the roll-out we need.' However, Connecting for Health was responding, he said, and a second version will be launched in September.

Doctors rejected a motion that sharing of information would benefit patient care. And they said primary care was failing to maintain and replace GPs' computer systems.