NHS: Could Private Help Save Public Healthcare?

To many people private healthcare represents an unfair two-tier health system in which the wealthy get Rolls Royce service and those dependent on the state system get substandard treatment. However the high standards of the NHS have made it an attractive partner for private providers, who often get to share equipment and services that only the NHS can provide.

One private health provider has pointed to the importance of that relationship and suggested that private healthcare needs to step up to help the NHS now that it is under pressure. Nuffield Health has published its annual accounts showing a 9% increase in turnover to £840m in the past year.

Steve Gray, its chief executive officer, said that “the number of people we have been able to help has increased by 22% to 1.1 million.” That increase has been attributed to an ageing population while the report also emphasises the strong divide between those who care a lot about their health and those who don’t.

Older Population Pays?

“The ageing population, unhealthy lifestyles and changes in technologies, treatments and consumer demand are placing an unsustainable burden on the NHS,” said Russell Hardy, chairman of Nuffield Health. Brexit pressures on the NHS are another cause for concern.

“In 2017, the organisation will almost certainly experience pressures as the political and economic implications of the referendum on membership of the EU are felt and the NHS continues to struggle with increasing demand,” said Gray.

The interesting aspect of the report is that it repeatedly refers to supporting an ailing NHS and suggests that, rather than adopting a US-style system in which everyone depends on insurance, private healthcare providers should be helping the NHS to cope with demand.

Nuffield Health began as a nursing home and fundraising charity in Bournemouth. It expanded to run 15 hospitals by the 1970s and became a trading charity in the late 1980s. Since 2000 it has combined hospital care with fitness after it took on Cannons gyms and this year acquired 35 Virgin Active gyms.

That informs its policy of both treating and preventing illness, using its private status to straddle the gym and healthcare industries in a way that a public provider would find difficult.

Like the major private provider Bupa, Nuffield says the fact that it has no shareholders or investors to answer to means that “every penny we make is reinvested into our services and facilities, and ultimately the well-being of individuals.”

A real solution?

Whether paid for by patients or employers, private healthcare remains an elite system favouring wealth. But unlike services in many countries the NHS offers a very real competitive force that can outdo private healthcare in many areas. If more people from the wealthy baby-boomer generation choose to take up private healthcare and reduce their burden on the NHS that is surely a good thing that leaves the NHS better able to treat the more vulnerable in society.

The French and Australian systems of making patients pay a supplement towards their publicly-funded treatment do offer clear advantages but there would surely be outrage if the NHS moved towards making users pay.

As is the case with private schools, maintaining dual public and private systems introduces a form of double taxation as private users continue to pay for the state service while paying their private provider. But as long as the NHS continues to be recognised as a world-leading service for everyone its survival is better ensured by healthy collaboration with private firms rather than being sold off to the highest bidder.

by Stewart Vickers

 

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