Research into private care usage begins
The Patients Association is launching a focus group to help produce information for people looking into using private providers to help the group better understand how private healthcare works.
Advice will include how to get a referral to a private provider, what the options are for paying for treatment and how patients can ‘mix and match’ private and NHS care.
The project, funded by the Independent Healthcare Providers Network, follows research by the charity Engage Britain which found one-in-five people had used private healthcare because of difficulty accessing treatment in the NHS.
Private care want long plan to cut waiting lists
The Independent Healthcare Providers Network (IHPN) has appealed to the Government to urgently set out a clear long-term plan on how the care backlog will be cleared.
It said that, with a record 5.6m people on NHS waiting lists, tackling this would require an important role for independent sector providers who were committed to playing their full part in the recovery of the health service post-Covid.