Aditya Chakrabortty’s piece on private healthcare is timely, as tax cutting and public spending move centre stage in parliament (Why is private health booming and the NHS in crisis? Because that’s what ministers want, 13 October).
He describes hard-up people borrowing money for private treatment, having waited in pain and in vain to reach the top of an NHS waiting list. And he points out what eludes too many policymakers: that the private sector is not some wonderful additional source of medical expertise but draws heavily on NHS-trained doctors and consultants. The more patients are driven into the arms of private providers, the weaker the NHS will become.
The political right is good at portraying taxation as greedy government taking your money and using it for its own nefarious purposes. The left is bad at explaining that government spends money on those things that people cannot do or cannot do so well for themselves, like providing universal healthcare, freely available when you need it. Taxation is good for your health.
Janet Dobson
Dunnington, North Yorkshire
• Well done, Aditya Chakrabortty for being brave enough to mention, as most do not, that using private healthcare involves jumping the queue. The impression tends to be given that there is a whole alternative hospital system out there – shiny, new, resource-rich and fully staffed by happy, smiling nurses and doctors. Instead, as Chakrabortty implies, private healthcare is parasitic on the NHS.
As private healthcare employs NHS doctors, they are essentially involved in a conflict of interest, because they are in a position to influence both queues and patients. This dubious arrangement was a necessary compromise dating from the origins of the NHS, agreed upon by the Attlee government because so many doctors were hostile to NHS principles.
Margaret Pelling
Oxford
• Aditya Chakrabortty says that during the pandemic private hospitals treated “a grand total of eight coronavirus cases a day”, and that they “train no doctors”.
In fact, as the National Audit Office has reported, under the historic partnership with the NHS, private hospitals delivered more than 3.3m NHS procedures during the pandemic, all on an “at cost” basis with no profit being made. This contribution was described by NHS England’s Amanda Pritchard as “critical” in maintaining NHS cancer services during Covid, and the Royal College of Surgeons called it a “lifeline” to the health service.
Also, following an agreement with the NHS and Health Education England, more than 4,000 NHS junior doctors have been trained in the sector since 2020.
Independent providers play a key role in delivering both NHS and privately funded care, ensuring that the public can access the treatment they need and giving real choice to patients.
David Furness
Independent Healthcare Providers Network
• Aditya Chakrabortty overlooks the fact that a sizable proportion of Spire Healthcare’s business is providing much-needed diagnosis and treatment for NHS patients, including some of those who have been waiting the longest, helping to relieve pressure on waiting lists. This builds on the support we provided during the pandemic, when we put our services and facilities at the disposal of the NHS, caring for 360,000 NHS patients during the peaks.
We are also passionate about learning and development, running one of the country’s largest nurse apprenticeship programmes in the country, with the intention that many who graduate will go on to a career in the NHS. A strong NHS and a strong independent sector are key to addressing the challenges facing healthcare in the UK; we at Spire are committed to playing our part.
Justin Ash
CEO, Spire Healthcare
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