David Rowland writes that clearing the NHS backlog of consultations and procedures cannot be achieved through private work because it’s the same doctors who offer private healthcare and NHS care (Private hospitals coming to the NHS’s rescue? Labour should know better, 12 December). However, he is missing one crucial detail. The reason those NHS doctors are willing to work additional hours to cover private work is that it pays them more.
Under the current system, you cannot incentivise NHS doctors to provide additional NHS work. Therefore it is left to the private industry to do so, while enjoying a healthy profit out of the bargain. Allow the NHS to incentivise NHS doctors to provide a service beyond their regular rostered hours for supply-and-demand-based financial gain. That way, the public will get the extra consultant hours it needs, at a fair price, without private enterprise interposing and doubling the cost.
Jack Pickard
Paediatric intensive care doctor, London
