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Private hospitals’ business model is archaic, unsafe and indefensible 

Jeremy Hunt’s call for private hospital companies to improve their safety and quality standards after a damning report on the sector by the regulator marks a long overdue– though still tacit– acknowledgment that the private sector’s business model is based on an archaic and dangerous concept of medical practice. Usually in private hospitals an independent surgeon operates alone and is off-site and not available for post-operative care as soon as their patient is back on the ward. If anything goes wrong, the nearest NHS hospital is an ambulance dash away. This model poses distinct risks to patients. 

This is increasingly concerning as a growing share of all NHS-funded surgery (almost 600,000 hip and knee replacements a year) is now carried out in private hospitals – NHS patients now account for roughly half of all their admissions. 

Hunt’s action was not in fact prompted by the Care Quality Commission’s recent report, but by a letter sent to him by a coroner in Manchester, to which the health secretary was obliged to reply by 15 May. In the letter, which the coroner also sent to the Centre for Health and the Public Interest, he called for action following the death of Peter O’Donnell, who died in an NHS hospital from complications following a routine hip replacement at a private hospital. O’Donnell’s deteriorating condition was not noted early enough, due to inadequate monitoring; and a single junior resident medical officer, provided and appraised by an outside agency and working literally 24/7, was in sole charge, says the coroner. 

Further, there was no formal protocol governing communication with the surgeon requiring him to come back to see his patient if his condition deteriorated; and there was no agreed protocol for transferring an unwell patient to the nearest NHS hospital. To make matters worse, two nurses were found to have altered O’Donnell’s case notes after he was transferred, the coroner revealed. ...

Guardian 09.05.18 link 

É nisto que dá a destruição da rede de referenciação de cuidados. A implementação da propalada livre escolha dos utentes. Os voucher de cirurgia, dirigidos a unidades privadas. E outras sofisticações quejandas, concebidas com o único propósito de baralhar a responsabilidade do estado na defesa da universalidade e qualidade dos cuidados de saúde.