NHS spends £70m on farming out patients for private treatment
THE NHS in Scotland has spent more than £70million on private sector treatment for patients in only two years.
New figures released under Freedom of Information laws show health bosses routinely farm patients out as they struggle to hit waiting time targets.
Critics called the figures ‘astonishing’ – but the Scottish Government insisted only a tiny fraction of patients were treated privately.
The figures were disclosed by Scottish Labour health spokesman Jackie Baillie.
She said: ‘To find out we have spent so much money sending patients to private hospitals is astonishing.
‘It shows the NHS in Scotland simply doesn’t have the capacity it needs to meet patient demand.’
The figures showed NHS health boards spent £36million in 2010-11 and £34.2million in 2011-12 on private sector treatment. A breakdown showed NHS Fife spent less than £4,000 in both years, while NHS Borders spent more than £4million – larger than the bill for NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, which spent £3.5million.
NHS Lanarkshire had the highest bill, £9.1million, for both years, but the health board said that more than 70 per cent of this went on care home and hospice services.
When the SNP established a minority Scottish Government in 2007, the then-Health Secretary Nicola
‘Our hospitals don’t have the capacity’
Sturgeon ruled out investing more taxpayers’ money in private surgery units and hospitals.
She insisted that health boards could use existing private sector capacity ‘at the margins’ to reduce backlogs of patients.
Professor Allyson Pollock, an expert in public health research and policy at Queen Mary, University of London, said: ‘It is not sensible to use the private sector for pragmatic reasons, far better to ensure there is sufficient capacity in the NHS and to plan accordingly.
‘The NHS can have flexibility built in to the system.’
Health Secretary Alex Neil said: ‘Our health service is run for patients, not profits, which is why we choose to give the NHS real terms funding increases in the face of UK Government cuts.
‘The number of patients treated in the private sector is a tiny fraction of the total – most patients are treated locally.’
The bill for private- sector treatments came to light barely a week after a Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service hearing found that a surgeon who treated NHS patients at a private hospital in Glasgow had failed to provide ‘good clinical care’.
In a number of cases, Dr Colin Campbell Mainds, who operated at the BMI Ross Hall Hospital, Glasgow, was found to have placed spinal implants incorrectly.
In addition, the 56-year-old did not examine three patients adequately and failed to provide two patients with sufficient information about the risks of the procedures that they were facing.
Thousands of NHS Lothian patients were treated at private hospitals across the country last year in an effort to help clear lengthy waiting lists.
The health board, Scotland’s second largest, also offered treatment abroad after bosses failed to meet waiting time targets.
Patients were asked if they were prepared to travel to England, European Union nations or Switzerland for complex procedures before the end of the year.