GP surgery recommends private treatment to patients after cutbacks

A GP surgery in Yorkshire is being questioned by the local primary care trust after writing to patients to propose they use private care for some minor procedures, which the doctors claim the NHS will no longer fund.

The Haxby and Wigginton Health Centre says it has offered patients treatment alternatives as a consequence of cutbacks caused by the ongoing £20bn (€23bn; $30bn) worth of efficiency savings that the NHS has to make by 2015.

In July, the health centre’s Haxby Group Practice wrote to 30 patients to tell them eight minor procedures, including removal of skin tags, moles, and warts or cysts, and treatment of ingrowing toenails, were now things the NHS was no longer able to provide. …