The News Line: News
Tuesday, 19 April 2011
NHS rationing hitting the elderly – warn surgeons
RATIONING is denying many thousands of patients much-needed surgery, leaving them in excruciating, unnecessary pain as NHS trusts proscribe certain procedures in unofficial ‘local lists’, the Federation of Surgical Specialty Associations (FSSA) accuses in an open letter.
The FSSA, which represents 15,000 surgeons is meeting in Edinburgh today ‘to further discuss the issues raised by these lists’.
The Open Letter states: ‘The Federation of Surgical Specialty Associations (FSSA), an organisation which represents the nine major surgical specialties in the UK, is concerned that lists of surgical procedures and interventions, deemed of low clinical effectiveness or of “lower value”, are being used by PCTs to limit access to certain procedures.
‘A large number of local lists exist, but there is no authorised Dept of Health list. The recent publication of a Health Briefing by the Audit Commission appears to support the process . . .
‘Review of the lists reveals that there is little or no evidence to support the view that many of the procedures are of limited value to individual patients.
‘For example, the lists include types of hip, spinal, ENT, dental, bariatric and cancer surgery for which there is overwhelming evidence of benefit. The only justification for these lists can be that they are a means of reducing expenditure at a time when the NHS faces a financial crisis.’
Anna Athow, BMA Council Member in a personal capacity, told News Line: ‘It’s absolutely true that these PCTs are reducing the commissioning of essential operations, or postponing them so people have to suffer symptoms longer, often in great distress.
‘It’s an absolute disgrace because all the surgical expertise is there to treat these patients and it’s due to these £20 billion so-called efficiency savings that the government is forcing on the pcts and the trusts.
‘They are denying necessary care to thousands of patients and the unions should be fighting against the £20 billion cuts and insisting that services are maintained.’
Peter Kay, chairman of the British Orthopaedic Association (BOA), to which 4,000 surgeons belong, said many tens of thousands of patients, potentially 200,000 a year, are affected.
He said: ‘Older people are easy targets. Arthritis means they may be hobbling around and become virtual prisoners in their own homes, dependent on friends and relatives, if rationing means they do not get the operation they need.’
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