Reid defends mobile cataract treatment centres
Health Secretary John Reid has defended his plans to contract a South African healthcare firm to provide cataract operations on the NHS from two mobile treatment centres.
The deal is part of the Government’s programme for cutting waiting times for simple surgical procedures, but opponents have expressed alarm at the use of private facilities within the NHS.
Opponents argue that the plans would deprive NHS surgeons of opportunities for training and increase the risk of private operators poaching NHS staff.
South African firm Netcare runs that country’s largest private hospital network, and has been listed on the Johannesburg stock exchange since 1996, and is due to start providing cataract services in the UK from next month.
The Department of Health insists that Netcare can carry out cataract operations 10 per cent more cheaply than the NHS can.
Dr Reid declared, “This is good news all round for the tax payer, for the patient and for the whole of the NHS.”
The Government has undertaken to provide 80 of these fast-track treatment centres by 2005, but many fear that they will reinforce the emerging two-tier healthcare system.
It is suggested that private-run treatment centres will cream off the easy cases, leaving the NHS proper to handle the more complex and expensive problems.
Dr Paul Miller, chairman of the British Medical Association’s consultants committee, welcomed the move but stressed that it is only a short-term measure.
He told the BBC, “I don’t think anyone would think it was a good way long term to plan to run your services by flying in surgeons for a couple of weeks at a time from all over the globe to do a few operations and then go home”, adding, “We need reassurances that this is not going to impact on NHS services.”
