Wednesday 28 March 2012

Report reveals stark dangers in opening up NHS services

Report reveals stark dangers in opening up NHS services: Patients denied treatment, forced to pay for care and faced worsening health after changes to physiotherapy provision

A controversial example of private companies being allowed to provide NHS services has resulted in patients in pain being denied treatment, forced to go private and enduring "extended suffering".
Those are the findings of an internal NHS report into how patients fared when physiotherapy services in Rushcliffe, Nottinghamshire were opened up to "any willing provider" – a version of which will start affecting a range of NHS community and mental health services in England from Sunday.

The report is a secret internal "review" conducted by practice-based commissioner Principia Rushcliffe, a social enterprise that in 2009 used the Labour government's opening up of NHS community services to replace the NHS as the sole local provider of musculoskeletal services for people with neck and back pain with nine private providers. But a massive overspend in the planned £55,000 treatment budget in 2010 led to Principia last year bringing in drastic restrictions on patients' ability to access the care they needed.The Guardian

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