Private clinics plans scrapped

Source: Healthcare Exec

Date :16/11/2007 11:35:34

Health Secretary Alan Johnson has been accused of backtracking over public health restructuring by cancelling plans for a nationwide network of private healthcare clinics.

The director general has come under much criticism for a perceived ‘watering down’ down Tony Blair’s proposed changes, with the Confederation of British Industry’s Neil Bentley saying that ‘it is difficult to see it as anything other than an early Christmas present for opponents of reform.’

"It is patients that are the losers,” he continued. “This decision reduces patient choice and means people will not benefit from the extremely high standards of care that independent-sector treatment centres have been independently judged to offer."

Integral

By paying the private sector for diagnosis and operations such as hip replacements, Mr. Blair intended to expand capacity and spur on the NHS to improve its own performance. The scheme was vital to Mr. Blair’s plans to reform the country’s ailing health service, and Mr. Johnson’s retreat will be seen as a capitulation by many.

The schemes to be scrapped, because they do not offer value for money or are poorly used, are North East Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire Referral Assessment Diagnostics and Treatment Service; North East Diagnostics; South East Diagnostics; Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridge Electives; Cumbria and Lancashire Clinical Assessment and Treatment Services; and Hampshire and Isle of Wight Electives.

In a ministerial statement to MPs, Alan Johnson was adamant that the government is not ending its policy of using private sector centres to treat NHS patients, insisting they continued to have many benefits.

November 16, 2007