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| Britain |
| Cash-strapped NHS hospitals chase private patient 'bonanza' |
| 2010-04-12 |
| Patients are paying record amounts out of their own pockets to buy private treatment from the National Health Service, which was set up to offer services for free. Middle-class and wealthy people now routinely receive better or earlier treatment on the NHS, including cancer diagnosis, heart bypasses and hernia operations. An Observer investigation has revealed that the NHS last year earned £340 million by renting out operating theatres, scanning machines, and beds to private patients. The NHS's private income has grown from £249m before Labour was elected, according to the health market analysts Laing & Buisson. The figures show that income from private patients is growing faster than that from the Treasury. Cash-strapped hospitals are desperate to earn money by treating fee-paying patients out of normal hours. People unable to afford the NHS fees wait longer, with delays often so protracted that treatable conditions can become fatal. To cash in on the bonanza, the Department of Health is building private wards for fee-paying patients. In many towns, the NHS has become the only provider of private treatment. Hospitals such as Burton General, Hinchingbrook, Luton and Dunstable, St Mary's on the Isle of Wight and Yeovil District Hospital have new facilities that are the sole providers of private medical treatment in their areas. Some leading NHS hospitals have become dependent on private revenues. The Royal Marsden in London, the country's leading cancer hospital, earns 23 per cent of its income - £18.1 million last year - from the treatment of private patients, half of whom are from over seas. Foreign fee-paying patients gain access to NHS doctors, nurses and equipment denied to non-paying NHS patients. A recent academic study showed NHS delays in bowel cancer treatment were so great that, in one in five cases, cancer which was curable at the time of diagnosis had become incurable by the time of treatment. Last year, the Royal Brompton Hospital, which specialises in heart surgery, earned 13 per cent of its income from private patients, according to the healthcare analyst William Fitzhugh. For non-paying NHS patients, the average wait for a heart bypass is about a year. The NHS has about 3,000 beds dedicated to private patients, making it one of the biggest providers of private medicine in Britain. Many of Britain's biggest private medical insurers, including PPP, now routinely pay for treatment for customers at NHS hospitals. Christopher Denne, a former British diplomat, learnt to his cost earlier this year that having money helped to get better treatment in the NHS. He was diagnosed with prostate cancer, seven months after being referred by his GP, but was told he could not see a consultant until he had a scan to see if the disease had spread to his bones. The bone scanner at Derriford Hospital in Plymouth was so busy that he faced an eight-week wait for diagnosis. However, Denne was told that the NHS scanning machine was reserved for private patients for a certain period each day and was often unused. He paid £180 to have the scan done within three days. 'It was the same scanner, in the same hospital, with the same people. It amazed me,' Denne said. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose |
| #3 How convenient that this didn't come out until after the Obamacare vote. |
| Posted by: Cornsilk Blondie 2010-04-12 13:50 |
| #2 Wouldn't it be illegal to use government owned equipment and pocket the cash? |
| Posted by: BrerRabbit 2010-04-12 13:50 |
| #1 Isn't socialism trying to prevent a "two tier" system where there is one for the rich and one for the poor? |
| Posted by: DarthVader 2010-04-12 11:45 |