Wessex local medical committee has issued a warning letter to three integrated care boards where it represents GPs: Dorset; Hampshire and the Isle of Wight; and Bath and North East Somerset, Swindon and Wiltshire. The letter calls for “ICB action to address potential patient safety and quality issues relating to the ever-expanding market of ‘right to choose’ providers”.
Growing numbers of patients are requesting NHS-funded referrals to private providers “operating outside of agreed guidelines”, fuelled by long waiting lists and “aggressive direct marketing tactics”, GPs have warned.
The GPs report the biggest problems are, increasingly, for weight management and for services to diagnose neurological disorders such as ADHD and autism — both of which have long and growing waiting lists with many NHS services.
National NHS choice rules, known as the “right to choose”, mean all ICBs must allow and fund patients to use any provider of these services, regardless of location and as long as it has a contract with another ICB. Choice of NHS community service providers, however, is limited, partly because they are funded by block payments.
Full story in the HSJ, 16 December 2024
