NHS England had no choice but turn to private hospitals during Covid surge

[Northerner]

Another day, another initiative to stop hospitals becoming overwhelmed by a combination of the Omicron surge and normal winter pressures. NHS England has struck a deal with private healthcare providers under which their hospitals will be ready to start treating NHS patients who cannot get the Covid or non-Covid care they need because their local NHS hospital is under too much pressure.

This follows the recent news that “mini-Nightingale” field hospitals are being built in the grounds of eight hospitals, that gyms and education centres in hospitals could be turned into overflow wards, and that thousands of Covid patients could be treated at home in “virtual wards”. Any or all of this could happen if the increase in Covid hospitalisations leads to a hospital trust or even entire region of the NHS deciding it needs “surge capacity”.
Announcing the latest tie-up with the private sector on Monday, NHS England’s chief operating officer, Sir David Sloman, who is also the service’s Covid incident director, said: “This deal … means as many people as possible can continue to get the care they need.

“It also places independent health providers on standby to provide further help should hospitals face unsustainable levels of hospitalisations or staff absences. Just like the Nightingale hubs being created across the country, we hope never to need their support. But it will be there if needed.”

NHS England had no choice but turn to private hospitals during Covid surge

Analysis: service forced into what is likely to be long-term marriage of convenience by scale of backlog

www.theguardian.com

 

[grovesy]

My local one already does some work for the NHS. and has done for a number of years.

 

[Mrs Mimoo]

I had to go to my local Spire (v good) and pay £250 to see a cardiologist when I fell ill with tachycardia late last year. NHS offered me apt end of Feb 2022.... service from GP has been pretty bad - i had to fight to get beta blockers to control multiple random attacks. NHS should utilise private capacity all the time and itself swap to compulsory insurance in my view - the german system works so well and has over capacity because it's run on a non profit basis by insurance providers. Why everyone is obsessed with keeping a system that fails consistently in this country I don't know.

 

[grovesy]

I had to go to my local Spire (v good) and pay £250 to see a cardiologist when I fell ill with tachycardia late last year. NHS offered me apt end of Feb 2022.... service from GP has been pretty bad - i had to fight to get beta blockers to control multiple random attacks. NHS should utilise private capacity all the time and itself swap to compulsory insurance in my view - the german system works so well and has over capacity because it's run on a non profit basis by insurance providers. Why everyone is obsessed with keeping a system that fails consistently in this country I don't know.

Our current Health Insurance, is not the same as the German one. Going private does Many of the Consultants also don't work exclusively for the Private Hospitals.

 

[mikeyB]

I had to go to my local Spire (v good) and pay £250 to see a cardiologist when I fell ill with tachycardia late last year. NHS offered me apt end of Feb 2022.... service from GP has been pretty bad - i had to fight to get beta blockers to control multiple random attacks. NHS should utilise private capacity all the time and itself swap to compulsory insurance in my view - the german system works so well and has over capacity because it's run on a non profit basis by insurance providers. Why everyone is obsessed with keeping a system that fails consistently in this country I don't know.

Everyone is obsessed with the NHS because it is free at the point of service, and long term illness like diabetes won't bankrupt you.

NHS England fails consistently by any standard, because it had been underfunded and short staffed ever since the Tories came back into power in 2010. There are now only half the number of hospital beds that existed in 2010.I quite cheerfully use the Private Hospitals, because I can afford it, except for my many unprofitable conditions that the private sector don't like. I would never do that if I still lived in Scotland with their totally non privatised NHS, just as it used to be in England when I was working for it.