TORY ministers must rid the NHS of “private cowboys,” campaigners demanded today after the government announced that it would “turbocharge” efforts to cut record treatment backlogs by using private hospitals.
The new “elective recovery taskforce,” which met at Downing Street for the first time on Wednesday, is tasked with helping the NHS “maximise” its work with private health providers to reduce the soaring number of patients waiting for treatment.
Official figures show that the total hit a whopping 7.2 million in England alone at the end of October amid ongoing Tory austerity, the creeping privatisation of services and coronavirus pandemic-related pressures.
The taskforce, made up of academics and experts from the NHS and the private sector, aims to eliminate all waits of over 18 months by April next year and those of longer than a year by March 2025, officials said.
Health Minister Will Quince, who chairs the group, promised Whitehall a series of recommendations next year, including more information on “availability in private hospitals.”
In October, about 6 per cent of NHS care — some 450,000 appointments — was provided in private settings, the Department of Health said.
Health Secretary Steve Barclay claimed that he wanted to “turbocharge our current plans to bust the backlog and help patients get the treatment they need, while ensuring the NHS always remains free at the point of use.”
But campaign group We Own It warned that ministers have “deliberately underfunded the NHS to pave the way for a two-tier system.
“It’s totally unacceptable to leave patients suffering or waste money on the private sector when the solution is staring us in the face,” founder and director Cat Hobbs told the Morning Star.
“We call on Steve Barclay to get these private cowboys out of our healthcare system and fund our NHS properly so doctors and nurses can do their jobs.”
Social justice law firm Thompsons Solicitors condemned the government for “turning to private healthcare providers to dig it out of a hole.”
Head of policy Tom Jones said: “The NHS is on its knees and needs more funding.
“We have witnessed first-hand how countless lives have been blighted at the hands of rogue surgeons, including former breast surgeon Ian Paterson, who operated with impunity in a private healthcare system which isn’t required to deliver the same standards of transparency, safety and accountability.”
Good luck, private health providers are having the same recruitment problems as the NHS.
Private healthcare is going nowhere, we just need to have a clear boundary between the two. The risks of private healthcare also need to be made clearer to people. A private surgeon may perform your hip or knee replacement but any complications from the surgery and you will almost certainly end up back in the NHS to have those addressed.
> But campaign group We Own It warned that ministers have “deliberately underfunded the NHS to pave the way for a two-tier system.
They have succeeded with education, health services are next on the list. When you look at how many people can afford private education, you can tell that a similar select few will be able to afford private healthcare. Again, it will always exist in some form, however it seems pretty clear that most of us will have to put up with a failing NHS unless the Tories are voted out soon.
In the mind of the socialist.. a Nuffield hospital surgeon got his medical degree on udemy and his major abdominal set off of alibaba
In reality.. it’s the same surgeon who’s in the nhs hospital, they’ve just driven across the city to the private hospital to be paid what they’re actually worth.
Source:
I’m a surgeon
The amount of money that gets thrown at these companies could easily pay for the additional funding the NHS needs. This is pure theft.
5 comments
By Ashley Cowburn Political Correspondent
Dan BloomOnline Political Editor
TORY ministers must rid the NHS of “private cowboys,” campaigners demanded today after the government announced that it would “turbocharge” efforts to cut record treatment backlogs by using private hospitals.
The new “elective recovery taskforce,” which met at Downing Street for the first time on Wednesday, is tasked with helping the NHS “maximise” its work with private health providers to reduce the soaring number of patients waiting for treatment.
Official figures show that the total hit a whopping 7.2 million in England alone at the end of October amid ongoing Tory austerity, the creeping privatisation of services and coronavirus pandemic-related pressures.
The taskforce, made up of academics and experts from the NHS and the private sector, aims to eliminate all waits of over 18 months by April next year and those of longer than a year by March 2025, officials said.
Health Minister Will Quince, who chairs the group, promised Whitehall a series of recommendations next year, including more information on “availability in private hospitals.”
In October, about 6 per cent of NHS care — some 450,000 appointments — was provided in private settings, the Department of Health said.
Health Secretary Steve Barclay claimed that he wanted to “turbocharge our current plans to bust the backlog and help patients get the treatment they need, while ensuring the NHS always remains free at the point of use.”
But campaign group We Own It warned that ministers have “deliberately underfunded the NHS to pave the way for a two-tier system.
“It’s totally unacceptable to leave patients suffering or waste money on the private sector when the solution is staring us in the face,” founder and director Cat Hobbs told the Morning Star.
“We call on Steve Barclay to get these private cowboys out of our healthcare system and fund our NHS properly so doctors and nurses can do their jobs.”
Social justice law firm Thompsons Solicitors condemned the government for “turning to private healthcare providers to dig it out of a hole.”
Head of policy Tom Jones said: “The NHS is on its knees and needs more funding.
“We have witnessed first-hand how countless lives have been blighted at the hands of rogue surgeons, including former breast surgeon Ian Paterson, who operated with impunity in a private healthcare system which isn’t required to deliver the same standards of transparency, safety and accountability.”
Good luck, private health providers are having the same recruitment problems as the NHS.
Private healthcare is going nowhere, we just need to have a clear boundary between the two. The risks of private healthcare also need to be made clearer to people. A private surgeon may perform your hip or knee replacement but any complications from the surgery and you will almost certainly end up back in the NHS to have those addressed.
> But campaign group We Own It warned that ministers have “deliberately underfunded the NHS to pave the way for a two-tier system.
They have succeeded with education, health services are next on the list. When you look at how many people can afford private education, you can tell that a similar select few will be able to afford private healthcare. Again, it will always exist in some form, however it seems pretty clear that most of us will have to put up with a failing NHS unless the Tories are voted out soon.
In the mind of the socialist.. a Nuffield hospital surgeon got his medical degree on udemy and his major abdominal set off of alibaba
In reality.. it’s the same surgeon who’s in the nhs hospital, they’ve just driven across the city to the private hospital to be paid what they’re actually worth.
Source:
I’m a surgeon
The amount of money that gets thrown at these companies could easily pay for the additional funding the NHS needs. This is pure theft.