‘There should be no question of making patients pay for operations that are considered essential by their doctor or consultant,’ insisted UNISON head of Health, Karen Jennings yesterday.
Jennings was responding to a suggestion from NHS boss Dr Tim Crayford, president of the Association of Directors of Public Health, that most NHS prescription charges in England should be scrapped and instead ‘minor operations’ should be paid for.
Jennings added to News Line: ‘No one would choose to have their tonsils removed or have a hysterectomy if it wasn’t necessary to give them a better quality of life.
‘Making people pay for some operations would undermine the foundation stone of the NHS – that it should be free at the point of use and based on need not ability to pay.
‘That is what we pay our taxes for.’
Citing tonsil removal and varicose vein surgery as examples, Crayford, said: ‘If NHS charges should be applied at all, they should be applied to relatively ineffective treatments.
He also suggested charging for more serious procedures, such as cataract surgery and hip replacement operations.
Crayford added: ‘Medicine and treatment that people need for health reasons should be free.
‘But where there’s little proof of clinical benefit, the use of such treatments would reduce more quickly if they had a price tag attached.’
Jonathan Fielden, chairman of the British Medical Association’s consultants committee, rejected charging for basic operations.
He said: ‘The NHS is already rationing procedures – cosmetic surgery is not carried out on the NHS, and the drugs which are used are restricted.
‘There needs to be a public debate about what a comprehensive NHS means, which services are available, and which aren’t.
‘For example, should the NHS be doing work which is purely cosmetic, or of little clinical value?
‘But the question is how far do you go? If you include hips and eyes I think you are breaking with the traditional values of the NHS, I wouldn’t agree with that.’
A BMA spokesman stressed to News Line: ‘The BMA is committed to a NHS free at the point of use.’
He said that the BBC had misrepresented Jonathan Fielden in a report quoting Fielden as saying he could agree with charging for removing tonsils and varicose veins operations.
The BMA spokesman added: ‘The BBC misquoted Jonathan Fielden when it said he supported charging for varicose veins, tonsils and hernias’.
Crayford complained that since 1998, NHS spending on cataracts had increased by 40 per cent to £200m, while the cost of hip operations had risen a third to £300m.
