Care UK sees an opportunity to make money out of NHS rationing decisions
Care UK GP Newsletter
Charges advertised to doctors for people not eligible for NHS treatment:
Richard Blogger’s articles about NHS hospitals doing private work
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£1,300 for a cataract removal? National tariff is £708.
A few NHS hospitals use the term “self pay” for procedures that commissioners will not fund (usually IVF), and the patient is charged the national tariff price. A figure of £1,300 is far too high to be a National Tariff price, so this is not self-pay of the National Tariff, this is red-blooded profit making private healthcare. A figure of £1,300 for a cataract replacement is common for private health providers.
This is simply Care UK touting their private services. The interesting point is that it is being sent to GPs. Clearly Care UK have taken a marketing decision that they will market their private services via GPs under the guise of “self-pay”. If Care UK believed in “patient choice” they would advertise these services in local newspapers (as BMI does in my local newspaper, with similar prices to these). Care UK, however, have decided that GPs are a much better way to get business. Perhaps they are right.