Your editorial on the privatization of healthcare (March 11) brilliantly highlighted the negative impact on the NHS itself of outsourcing NHS surgery. I also found it useful for readers to know the direct impact on patients.
Analysis from the University of Oxford has shown a link between outsourcing and poorer quality of care for patients. It shows that as services shifted from the public to the private sector, the staff-to-patient ratio decreased and patients with more serious, less profitable conditions were left out.
It is also worth noting in the context of private hospitals ‘helping’ reduce waiting lists, which private hospitals have sent 550 of their patients to the NHS on average every month between 2016 and 2021. This is hurting the budgets of NHS trusts and worsening the care available to people in NHS hospitals, as Oxford researchers have claimed. previously linked to the death of hundreds of people.
The business model of private hospitals is quite transparent. They make billions from NHS contracts to carry out operations, but when things go badly they dump all the costs back onto the NHS.
We need to fund our NHS directly to build capacity and end these disastrous outsourcing deals. This is what our Pledge for the NHS campaign asks politicians to do.
Johnbosco Nwogbo
Lead campaigner, We Own It