Stop Private Healthcare Companies from Exploiting the NHS!

NHS Money is being Wasted in Pernicious Deals with the Private Healthcare Sector

Spire Healthcare made £millions in profits from the wrongful and unnecessary breast cancer surgeries that we suffered at Ian Paterson’s hands at their hospitals from 1997-2012.

Although after years of fighting Spire Healthcare finally granted us a modicum of compensation, there are many in my group of survivors who continue to suffer ill health from all that Paterson and his cohorts forced them to endure. Despite spending millions with Spire Healthcare in good faith, in the belief that we would receive the ‘World Class’ treatment that they advertised, most of the people in my group have had to return to NHS care in the hopes of finally receiving the correct and appropriate treatment.

This of course means that the burden of the cost for any remedial care they need has to come from the NHS budget. As there are people in my group who were so severely harmed at Spire hospitals that they have had to undergo numerous surgeries to attempt to reconstruct and repair all the harm done, plus ongoing treatments and drug therapies, this amounts to a significant expense for the NHS to bear.

So I am calling for an additional Recommendation to be added to those made by the Bishop’s Inquiry into Ian Paterson: The Inquiry into Ian Paterson
that if a private healthcare company supplies the services of surgeons or treatments that harm a patient and the patient has to return to the NHS system for remedial and restorative care, then the private healthcare company should be obliged to pay a lump sum into the NHS budget at least equal to the fees they charged that patient to fund the patient’s care, plus additional subsidiary payments for any further care required.

This would go some way toward supporting the NHS by stopping private healthcare companies from draining the NHS budget, and would also provide some financial incentive for private healthcare companies to finally make some effort to protect the patients who purchase their services. – Private Healthcare companies will make more effort to protect their patients from harm if they have to pay for the consequences.

The CHPI have already provided significant evidence that Spire Healthcare use NHS resources to supplement their own £billion holdings –  CHPI Paterson Report

For example: Spire Healthcare charge a private healthcare patient £thousands to perform an operation, promising them ‘World Class’ care without disclosing the fact that if anything goes wrong they do not have emergency facilities or ICUs at the majority of their hospitals, and that patient will be immediately transported to an NHS hospital to be revived and cared for. This cost is charged to the patient but NOT paid by Spire Healthcare – instead it is the NHS budget that foots the bill for their casualties and mistakes. CHPI 4 Critical Safety Risks in the Private Healthcare Sector

Sadly this shows Spire Healthcare to be already a significant drain on NHS resources, and yet a new ‘partnership deal’ between Spire Healthcare and the NHS is set to divert even more public money from the NHS purse into their £billion private company.

As announced on the London Stock Exchange on March 23rd - Partnership Deal between Spire Healthcare and the NHS

Spire Healthcare have pledged to ‘help’ the NHS by helping themselves to a deal that sees the NHS pay them in advance a premium rate to rent beds for Covid-19 patients despite the fact that the majority of their hospitals do not even have the emergency and intensive care facilities required to nurse Covid-19 patients. But of course as the lockdown prevents them from conducting their usual business such an arrangement allows for Spire Healthcare to remain open and to maintain a revenue stream where otherwise they would have none.

Although the terms of the ‘partnership deal’ remain murky, it is essentially the NHS being used to prop up the profits of a billionaire private healthcare company by paying them a weekly retainer to help patients that they cannot possibly help.

Such a stunning deal with the possibility of a covert backdoor entry into the NHS has gained international interest, as Trump favourite investment corporation, Invesco has already bought two massive blocks of vote carrying stock in Spire Healthcare since the announcement was made in March.

The first block sold on March 19th 2020 Invesco Buy Spire Healthcare Voting Stock
The second block on April 8th 2020 Invesco Buy More Spire Healthcare Voting Stock

So please support our proposal that private healthcare companies should pay full price to the NHS for the care of the patients that they have harmed.

We want to support the NHS and the marvellous work that are doing to save lives during the pandemic, we want to save NHS resources for those who need them, we want to prevent the possibility of backdoor private deals compromising the integrity of the NHS, and we want to see financial accountability applied to the private healthcare sector to promote patient safety and responsible practise.

My group of fellow survivors of Ian Paterson and his cohorts have been campaigning since 2015 for there to be changes made to the laws governing the private healthcare sector to try to ensure that patient safety is prioritised above financial profit. We have all endured life altering physical and emotional scars, but we will fight on in the name of all those who did not survive the treatment to ensure that others will never have to suffer the same.