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PRIVATISATION is destroying the NHS’s ability to carry out common surgery, an expert warned at a TUC fringe meeting today.
Professor Allyson Pollock, a consultant in public health medicine, said: “If you look now on the website on every large foundation trust, they will all have a webpage dedicated to private patients.
“Many of them are franchising out John Lewis whole wards, whole floors to Hospital Corporation of America, UnitedHealth, you name it, and that’s how their income is generated — so up to half of their income means half of their beds, services, staff can also be dedicated to private patients.
“These foundation trusts are now looking to privatise a whole lot of other services, outsourced, and are actually doing a whole lot of outsourcing. A good example of this is cataracts surgery.
“Almost half of operations that are being done for hips, knees and cataracts on the NHS are not being done within the NHS, they are being contracted out to large companies like Spire or Bupa.”
