The NHS effectively subsidises private health care by picking up the pieces when patients become too ill for the private clinics/hospitals to deal with.
The Centre for Health & the Public Interest finds up to 6,000 patients a year are transferred from private to NHS facilities due to complications (& these are only the direct transfers, not those after treatment) costing the NHS at least £250m a year.
The NHS should be (at the very least) paid for these 'rescues'!
@ChrisMayLA6
When I first came to Leicester it was to work in the laboratory inthe Regional Cardiothoracic Unit back in the early 80s.
We did a lot of clever cardiac surgery including some 'breakthrough' research.
But I was shocked at how many patients were transferred to the NHS Intensive Care Unit from the local private hospital which did much more routine cardiac surgery - which of course was performed by exactly the same surgeons, usually on a Friday evening or Saturday. There was no overnight medical cover at the private hospital, so anyone with a hint of a problem was dumped on the NHS.
It still happens today.
Medical Tourism is another modern equivalent.
@MikeFromLFE @ChrisMayLA6 I think medical tourism is the way of the future. I imagine that we'll go to asia for medical treatments that are 2x as modern, and half the price of the heavily regulated socialist medicine we can get in europe.
@h4890 @MikeFromLFE
Maybe, maybe not - I would maintain there is a lot of difference between elective & necessary treatment(s).... medical tourism might be OK for the former, but fir the latter seems like a risky proposition