NHS workers allowed private care funded by the taxpayer

Physiotherapy and MRI scans covered for staff amid unprecedented crisis for hospital waiting lists

NHS trusts are using taxpayers’ money to fund private medical tests and treatment for staff while patients languish on record waiting lists, The Sunday Telegraph can disclose.

Hospitals and ambulance trusts are paying for their employees to undergo private care ranging from MRI scans to physiotherapy, and psychiatric care in London’s Harley Street.

In one case, a firm providing private physiotherapy to hospital staff in Hertfordshire said it won the business because the trust wanted employees to get treatment “much more quickly” than the 14-week wait facing NHS patients. Employees referred to the private company for treatment “receive an appointment within an average of 2.6 days”, the firm said.

In another case, a hospital spent thousands of pounds on private health insurance for staff.

The funding means that NHS staff will be seen quicker than many members of the public waiting for equivalent tests or treatment from the health service. It was revealed in data obtained by Baker Kell Cumming, a political intelligence firm, from 50 trusts. The data also showed overall spending of more than £37 million on private occupational health services that are tasked with looking after employees’ physical and mental health.

Last year Boris Johnson announced an additional £36billion in funding for the health service – funded by a National Insurance increase – to help tackle the Covid-19 backlog.

According to the latest official figures, almost one in four patients were waiting six weeks or more for an MRI scan, while thousands faced delays of more than three months.

West Midlands Ambulance Service spent £1.4 million on a combination of private occupational health services and medical treatment for staff over the last four years. Among the private care funded by the trust was physiotherapy, mental health care, and diagnostic tests including MRI scans, for which employees pay and are then reimbursed on a case-by-case basis.

East Midlands Ambulance Service has funded similar treatment and tests for its staff, spending £81,000 on private healthcare in the past four years.

The trust linked the spending to the Covid pandemic, saying that if it had failed to fund private care for staff, “the level of care received by our patients may have been negatively impacted, and the additional pressure on the staff at work would have caused further detrimental impact on their wellbeing”.

A mental health trust paid more than £2 million for private occupational health services over four years, saying services provided as part of the contract included physiotherapy, flu vaccines, and “workstation assessments”.

Another trust, Essex Partnership University, which provides mental health and community services, including physiotherapy, spent £169,080 on private counselling and physiotherapy for staff over four years.

Meanwhile, University Hospitals Plymouth spent £4,463 on private health insurance in the past year.

East and North Hertfordshire NHS Trust revealed that it had paid £125,000 to Physio Med, an occupational physiotherapy firm, since 2018, including £43,000 last year.

Greig Baker, who chairs Baker Kell Cumming, said: “When the NHS pays for its own staff to get fast-tracked private care, the model is broken. The Government has introduced the new health and social care tax and the NHS is receiving more money than ever – but money isn’t the problem, the system is.”

A spokesman for East and North Hertfordshire NHS Trust said its staff were “working flat out” to tackle the backlog and “physiotherapy treatment means they can return to work more quickly … avoiding additional spend on costly agency and shift workers”.

An NHS England spokesman said: “Occupational health provision is a matter for individual NHS Trusts.

“While some trusts choose to outsource, spending on private healthcare provision could only be justified in exceptional circumstances and where it will improve patient care by helping to get staff back to work as quickly as possible.”