Hospital baclogs, Cataract and other

[John Wright]

1 hour ago, Kopek said:

OK, if we get an appropriate operator in place that will take care of the billing problems, will add to NHS income.

Given that consultants can take on a certain amount of private work, how do we ensure that this does not detract from their NHS  work? Could a surgeon cancel a 3pm NHS operation because they know they have a 5pm private appointment??? Are the nurses involved those who have signed to an agency having left the NHS?

Of course, this would all be mute point if we had a perfect NHS service!!!

 

I'm sure that surgeons have a moral stance on this matter and would not see someone suffer because they are out of time???

They are contracted for a number of sessions each week. A session is defined, a known quantity.

They can’t abandon an NHS session. Contractually. They couldn’t abandon an NHS patient over timing issues, that would also be unprofessional.

As we don’t have an operator under a user agreement no one knows how it would work for nurses. It’d be unique, a tiny private hospital unit, attached to a small NHS hospital, with no ability to do many ops, private or nhs, and no ability for nurses to drive from where they work to work at the nearest private hospital in the next town, or an hour down the motorway.

[wrighty]

OK. @John Wright has summoned me to the thread, so that’s the law - I have to opine. 
 

Firstly, in my opinion, if PPU did not make a profit (and I’m not sure it didn’t), it’s because it was not separated from Noble’s NHS core business. Essentially, if the medical wards were full, PPU would be used as an overflow ward with no recompense for the income lost should genuine private work be lost the following day. 
 

Secondly, as far as I know, consultants of my generation would not cancel NHS work to enable private work to go ahead. I actually did the opposite on occasion, and I know colleagues have done the same. It may have happened in the olden days (as a med student I knew of consultants ducking out of a clinic to go to the ‘golden nugget’ to whip out a private uterus, for example) but I doubt it does today with more formalised job planning.

 

The main issue here with private practice is volume. It’s probably not worth it for BUPA or whoever to take on the running of PPU as there are not enough insured patients to make it pay. Add to that the difficulty of staffing a standalone unit, and the difficulties with private/NHS integration - I’m not surprised that the bigger providers are reluctant. 
 

I don’t know what the solution is. My personal solution was to give up private operating in 2011, and all private work in 2019. Currently, there is no orthopaedic private practice on island, so you either wait or go across. At least we can’t be accused of being slow for the purposes of enhancing our incomes.