A PROTEST is to be held outside a York health centre which told patients they would have to go private for some minor treatments.
Haxby and Wigginton Health Centre sparked controversy last week when it wrote to about 30 people saying the NHS would no longer fund procedures such as treating warts, cysts and ingrowing toenails.
The centre provided a price list for the treatments through HBG Limited, in which it has a shareholding, but defended the letters by saying it had acted in patients’ “best interests” and they were given other companies’ details. However, the issue has raised fears over “backdoor privatisation” of the NHS as the House of Lords prepares to debate potential Government health reforms today.
The Socialist Health Association will stage a protest rally outside the surgery tomorrow evening, with director Martin Rathfelder saying he was “disgusted and outraged” at the letters and demanding an investigation.
“It represents a clear conflict of interest between those charged with looking after the nation’s health and the commercial interests of private healthcare providers,” he said.
The Unite union’s national officer for health, Rachael Maskell, said: ‘Serious questions have to be asked about the use of data collected for NHS purposes, now being used for energetic marketing.
“The impression being given is that these services are no longer available on the NHS. This may be a sad fact of life for this practice, but there are other areas of the country where these procedures are available on the NHS.”
NHS North Yorkshire and York’s medical director, David Geddes, has expressed “significant concerns” over the letters, but the practice’s managing partner, John McEvoy, said no patients had complained and 15 of those who were written to had said they would go private for the procedures.
Creeping fears of NHS reforms
THE taxpayer-funded NHS was always supposed to be “free at the point of delivery.”
It hasn’t been that for some time: just look at prescription charges, and the cost of going to your dentist. Nevertheless, treatment on the NHS is, at least, heavily subsidised. It continues to provide an essential lifeline and reassurance for those who need it.
There are those who fear, however, that the Government’s health reforms will lead towards creeping privatisation of the NHS by the back door. The Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, is among them. Speaking at the weekend he warned that the health reforms would see the NHS become “market-led or commercialised”. He called for a debate on the issue, adding: “You cannot compare an NHS Hospital to a supermarket.”
There are those who see evidence of just such creeping privatisation in the case of the Haxby and Wigginton health centre, which wrote to patients saying the NHS would no longer fund procedures such as treatments for warts and ingrowing toenails, and included with its letter a pricelist for treatment. The centre has defended its action, saying it acted in patients’ best interests, and pointing out that it gave details of other companies which offered the procedures.
But in a way, that is precisely the kind of “supermarket” NHS the Archbishop warned of.
Tomorrow, the Socialist Health Association will stage a protest rally outside the clinic.
It is probably unfair to target this particular health centre, however. It is only reacting to a changing ethos within the NHS.
At least now we can have a full and frank debate about how and how much we are all willing to pay for our NHS, before it is too late.
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