The Guardian view on the NHS crisis: private treatment is not the answer

[Northerner]

Waiting has long been the National Health Service’s chronic disease. In 1999, heart surgeons in Middlesbrough used to tell their patients that they had a 5% chance of dying while on the waiting list. Under Labour’s strict targets, waiting times fell. But lately they have risen again. For three years the health service has missed its requirement that patients be seen within 18 weeks for non-urgent surgery and this year ministers quietly relaxed the target. Now, rather than face long queues, growing numbers of patients in England are paying for private treatment instead. These one-off private patients – who do not have health insurance but might chose to have their hip or cararact operation privately – are increasing by up to 25% a year. This is not a good thing.

The NHS in England is in a bad way. In January the Red Cross said the service was facing a “humanitarian crisis”: hospitals were so overcrowded they could not guarantee patient safety. Some hospitals admit they are completely full. Exhausted and demoralised by unmanageable caseloads, many medics are retiring early or going part-time: the NHS is short of 40,000 nurses, and GPs are leaving the NHS at the rate of 400 a month. And every month of 2016-17 saw the NHS fail to treat 95% of those coming to hospital emergency rooms within the desired time of four hours.

https://www.theguardian.com/comment...hs-crisis-private-treatment-is-not-the-answer