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X-ray Services, CT and MRI Scanning to be separated from the NHS and provided by private healthcare companies. The death of the NHS by a thousand transfer of services to the private sector continues, with the inevitability of public funding via our National Insurance Contributions and taxes, going to the private sector and not the NHS. Deliberate, policy based lack of investment throughout the last decade of Tory and Coalition Government since 2010 has led to the NHS in England lagging far behind the OECD averages for scanners (CT, MRI and PET-CT) per million population, ranking lowest among 23 countries for CT scanner provision and 19th out of 21 for MRI equipment. Many NHS trusts have had to rely on charity efforts to buy large diagnostic equipment, such as MRI scanners. Charity appeals to upgrade MRI scanners currently live include ones at The Great Ormond Street Hospital and the Darlington Memorial and Bishop Auckland Hospitals Now those charity contributions from the public to buy scanners will see those scanners being handed over to provate companies!
NHS trusts have until 2023 to set up separate entities to run their diagnostic imaging services as part of a reform of diagnostic services. NHS England notes in the guidance that the networks will be “significant operating businesses in their own right”, and must have a “degree of autonomy” and “separation from the trusts”. NHS England has given the trusts seven options for setting up a network, one of which is “outsourcing” of the entire network to a commercial partner, which is marked in its guidance as one of the only two “highly feasible” options, alongside “collaboration” between two or more NHS trusts. The other options are: collaboration or alliance contracting, which both rely on all trusts being involved with decision making; a “host trust” that would use delegated authority from other network members to make decisions; a joint venture with a limited liability partnership model; a joint venture through a limited liability partnership; or a community interest company (CIC). The joint ventures and the CIC would all need HMRC approval and only be possible for NHS foundation trusts.
Also a report published in November 2020 had several major recommendations, including the setting up of community hubs where MRI, CT and other scans could take place in a Covid-19 free situation. Sited in high Streets and business parks, and NOT in hospitals! However, a major component of the report is that major investment is needed if diagnostic services are to recover from the effects of the pandemic and the years of underfunding. You can read the full article on The Lowdown website here The NHS Guidance Document which instructs NHS Hospitals / CCGs / STPs / ICS to hand their scanning services over to private and sperate businesses can be found by clicking the pic above or going to the E-Library Database selecting category 'NHS' here or by clicking on the cover photo to the left. Source: The Lowdown See also: NHS Privatisation Archive for additional news items and reports.
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The new report from The Lowdown examines in detail the backdrop to the current situation caused years of under staffing, and funding which put UK’s NHS far behind the rest of the world in the provision of healthcare imaging services, X-Rays, CT and MRI scanning.