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Permitting patients to "top-up" their NHS care privately will not result in a two-tier health system, Britain's national director for cancer has claimed. Professor Mike Richards told the House of Commons Health Select Committee that keeping private payers physically separate from NHS ones would avoid the problem of the latter feeling hard done by. While people may receive top-up treatment in the same hospital, they would not be treated on the same ward, Professor Richards said. Critics have warned that people who choose not to or cannot afford to pay for private top-ups might feel the poorer relation in a two-tier healthcare system. But Professor Richards, who published a review last year paving the way for top-ups, said those wishing to pay for drugs will receive them in a "different place" to where NHS care is given. That could mean being treated in the private wing of a NHS hospital, if it has one, or alternatively at home. The Press Association also reports that the cancer tsar denied that the NHS will have to pick up the bill if private care goes wrong, insisting this had always been the case. Patients will pay not only for the drug, but any cost over and above what would have been provided for on the NHS, including any scans or tests associated with the treatment, staff costs of administering the drug, follow-up care and the cost of any NHS equipment used for private purposes. Professor Richards denied a two-tier system would be created, arguing that there were already examples where people paid privately for some treatment while still accessing NHS care. He said: "I believe it has averted a two-tier system because the two are kept separate and people have always had the right to pay for private care. I think it does avoid that, rather emphatically." Credits: Health Insurance Magazine, February 2009 |
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