Feature
The “self funding” NHS patient: thin end of the wedge?
Cite this as:
BMJ
2012;345:e5128
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6 August 2012
Dear editor,
The article quotes the Health Minister: "If NHS treatment is available, patients must not be charged." (1)
The Department of Health quotes the NHS constitution: "The NHS provides a comprehensive service, available to all". (2)
If the NHS provides a comprehensive service, then NHS treatment is always available: "If" does not apply to NHS treatment being available.
Therefore the statements are not compatible and either one or t'other is dishonest.
(1) Adrian O’Dowd. The “self funding” NHS patient: thin end of the wedge? BMJ 2012;345:e5128. http://www.bmj.com/content/345/bmj.e5128
(2)The NHS constitution, the NHS belongs to us all. Department of Health 2012 edition. http://www.dh.gov.uk/prod_consum_dh/groups/dh_digitalassets/@dh/@en/docu...
Competing interests: None declared
Canterbury Road Surgery, 111 canterbury road sittingbourne kent ME10 4JA
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There should be no blurring of the boundaries between private and NHS care. The requirements set down by the Department of Health are very clear. NHS care is free at the point of delivery, except for very limited situations set down by law. Private care should be delivered separately to that provided by to NHS care – and private patients certainly should not be attending NHS clinics etc.
The patients described in the article are private patients – no question of it. If trusts are treating these patients alongside NHS patients they are acting outside the regulations and they certainly should not be calling them NHS patients. The practice should stop.
It is also the case that some, if not most, NHS trusts are also allowing co-funding on a scale not allowed in the guidance produced by the Department of Health.
The rules are not at all difficult to interpret. People and organisations are therefore choosing to ignore them. The problem is that no one is effectively monitoring or challenging the practices that are going on.
Competing interests: None declared
Not applicable , Worcester
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