by René Lavanchy
The Department of Health was accused this week of wasting money by funding privately run clinics and treatment centres. The British Medical Association claimed that some privately run services were costing the taxpayer more than National Health Service treatment.
The doctors’ union has launched a major campaign against private sector involvement in the NHS, sending leaflets to every GP practice and hospital in England.
The BMA says that GP-led health centres, known in London as polyclinics, receive three times as much funding on average as traditional GP surgeries.
They also say that the first wave of independent sector treatment centres – designed to relieve NHS hospitals of some of the more routine treatments and surgery – have only delivered 85 per cent of the service they are paid for, despite costing £1.47 billion in contracts nationwide.
Dr Hamish Meldrum, chair of the BMA council, said: “NHS staff see on a daily basis the waste of taxpayers’ money caused by this fixation with market ideology. Particularly as the public purse strings tighten, it is crucial that public money is no longer wasted on expensive commercial experiments.”
Ahead of the general election, the BMA is repeating its call for the NHS to be entirely publicly funded and for hospital building through the Private Finance Initiative to end. It cites 100 new PFI hospitals valued at £10.4 billion, which it says will cost £62.6 billion by the time final payments are made to the contractors.
The Department of Health had not commented as Tribune went to press.
