Private healthcare company sends price lists to GPs

A private health firm has sent hundreds of letters to GPs setting out a price list of operations they could offer their patients to beat NHS waiting times.

Care UK, which runs nine centres offering treatment on the NHS, said it intended to use spare theatre time to provide ‘self pay’ procedures.

It said it was trialling the scheme at two treatment centres in west England but insisted core work at the sites would remain NHS referrals.

The letters have, however, alarmed some GPs and health campaigners who are concerned it is another example of creeping privatisation in the NHS.

The procedures are being offered at treatment centres near Bristol and Wiltshire, and prices range from £160 to just under £9,000.

Mike Campbell, campaign group Protect Our NHS, said: “It is totally wrong that hard-pressed GPs are being encouraged to recommend their patients to a private company where patients will be paying when they should be getting their treatments free.

“More people are having to pay for urgent procedures, either by dipping into savings or by taking out health insurance. For those who can’t pay, waiting lists grow.”

A spokesperson from the NHS Bristol Clinical Commissioning Group said: “We commission Care UK to provide a number of planned care treatments. As a private provider of healthcare, they are able to offer self-pay treatments for patients, completely separate from the NHS. We are keen to stress there will continue to be a clear separation between NHS and private treatments.”

A Care UK spokesperson said it had begun to offer the ‘self-pay option’ to give ‘an additional treatment option for patients who find their access to NHS funded procedures has been restricted or delayed’.

They added: “Our focus will be on making use of otherwise unused theatre time to give easy, affordable access to procedures which have been restricted or de-prioritised by NHS commissioners, but which are nonetheless beneficial to patients’ wellbeing and quality of life.

“This option is essentially the same as that already offered to patients by NHS hospitals and gives an additional high quality, transparent, value-for-money alternative to private health insurance and to the much higher prices charged by existing private hospitals.

“I would like to stress that Emersons Green and Devizes treatment centres will continue to see NHS-funded patients for the same range of services as we have been doing in recent years.”