UNISON slams NHS Consultants private sector twin track

UNISON has slammed proposals from the NHS 'advisory panel on competition' that hospitals should not be allowed to bar their consultants from working for private providers of NHS care in their own time.

Today's FT reports that growing numbers of NHS patients are choosing to be treated in private hospitals while paid for by the health service, with the overwhelming majority being treated by NHS consultants working in their own time.

There are now more than 30 privately run surgical centres which are contracted to treat NHS patients. And some family doctors are now employing NHS consultants, outside their normal NHS hours, to do work traditionally undertaken in hospital.

Karen Jennings, Unison’s head of health said the proposals would produce “damaging staff shortages, with patient care and money shifting away from the NHS in to the private sector”. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/99fc3514-a851-11de-9242-00144feabdc0.html