NHS hospitals selling private rooms

[SpookyFrank]

https://nottstv.com/qmc-offering-side-rooms-for-women-when-they-give-birth-for-40-per-night/

The maternity unit at Queen's Medical Centre in Nottingham has started offering private rooms to mothers, at a cost of 40 pounds a night. This is the first example I can think of of hospitals overtly providing a two-tier service based on ability to pay.

On the surface it looks almost reasonable. There's a limited number of private rooms and an overcrowded unit. Births in hospitals cost the health service more than home births and it's often not medically necessary for a deliery to take place in hospital. Private rooms will still be available for free to those with a medical reason for needing one. And the hospital, like most, is flat broke.

But if the solution to overcrowding is more home births, then that is something midwives and health workers should be explaining to pregnant mothers to help them make informed decisions. Charging mothers and then telling them they should've known better than to come to hospital to have a child in the first place is not a coherent public health policy.

The main problem of course is once the general principle of this is accepted, it will spread to other services. It's not a massive leap from this to jumping the queue at A&E for fifty quid, which is cheap if you've got it and very expensive if you haven't. And you can't really blame the hospitals; they are overworked, understaffed and starved of cash.

This is a deliberate result of government policy. First you get private hospitals to act like NHS, then you get the NHS to act like a private provider, then you give the private providers a massive advantage over the NHS, then you sit back and wait until the idea of an NHS becomes meaningless.

 

[catinthehat]

We had this in my Mums final week. She had a big folder marked with some term I have forgotten but clearly indicating it was her last days and was just being given larger doses of painkillers. She was away with the fairies and kept trying to get out of bed and making some disturbing noises but was in a main ward. They told us she should be in a hospice but there were no places (they freely said they did not have enough staff to keep an eye on her). They said we could pay for a private room and nurse but after checking found these were all taken so we went on a list. She died before she came to the top of the list.

As you say I expect we will see much more of this.

 

[SpookyFrank]

And once you start sending people bills and taking payment that's a whole new layer of admin that someone has to do. I doubt the occasional forty quid is even going to cover the costs of that tbh. It only makes sense if you expand the charging model to more patients and more services.

 

[Pickman's model]

It's not a massive leap from this to jumping the queue at A&E for fifty quid, which is cheap if you've got it and very expensive if you haven't.

except of course people who attend a&e go through triage and so people more likely to die if untreated are seen more quickly than those who pop down as part of a night on the piss.

 

[kalidarkone]

Both the maternity hospitals I have worked at in Bristol offered private rooms postnatally for a cost. Southmead no longer does it, don't know about the other one.
I don't think Southmead do it any longer because the volume people needing beds has gone up loads. Added to that single rooms have to be available for people that are actually Ill and need to be barrier nursed.

 

[kalidarkone]

Anyway for normal low risk births- it's a 6 hour discharge. 24 hour discharge for c- section. So most mums staying in longer are having antibiotics, having a parenting assessment or waiting for accommodation.

 

[SpookyFrank]

except of course people who attend a&e go through triage and so people more likely to die if untreated are seen more quickly than those who pop down as part of a night on the piss.

Yes I'm aware of that. What's your point?

 

[Pickman's model]

Yes I'm aware of that. What's your point?

that despite your blather it is quite a leap from the charge for a maternity room to people paying to jump the queue in a&e.

 

[Pickman's model]

And once you start sending people bills and taking payment that's a whole new layer of admin that someone has to do. I doubt the occasional forty quid is even going to cover the costs of that tbh. It only makes sense if you expand the charging model to more patients and more services.

have you submitted a freedom of information request to gain more information or are you still at the stage of uninformed frothing?

 

[SpookyFrank]

that despite your blather it is quite a leap from the maternity rooms to people paying to jump the queue in a&e.

Well if that's your point, just say that.

 

[Pickman's model]

Well if that's your point, just say that.

ah, still just frothing i see.

 

[SpookyFrank]

have you submitted a freedom of information request to gain more information or are you still at the stage of uninformed frothing?

Other posters have managed to come here with relevant information and share that information in a friendly sort of way. You've come here with nothing and you're being very unfriendly about it. I'm not clear on how that helps anyone.

 

[killer b]

They've had private rooms available for years. My kids mum was offered one a decade ago.

 

[Pickman's model]

Other posters have managed to come here with relevant information and share that information in a friendly sort of way. You've come here with nothing and you're being very unfriendly about it. I'm not clear on how that helps anyone.

i could say much the same about the way you've decided to approach this, with frothing above and beyond the calls of duty (e.g. this charge is one step away from letting people skip the queue in a&e). if you think that the model is only sustainable by expanding charging across the trust then maybe looking into this a bit more might elucidate what is for many a very emotive topic. or just reading to the end of the article.

as for coming here with nothing, is that a crime now? i read your op and commented on it. it's what we do on urban.

 

[bi0boy]

Unused rooms in available to hire outrage.

 

[pogofish]

The main hospital here used to dedicate a whole floor for private use. First time I remember finding-out about it was in 1980. Many consultants also have private practices alongside their NHS work. The private floor was all single, en-suite rooms, with better food and service plus nurses in "traditional" nursing uniform - incl full-on capes with blood-red lining!

It also had a dedicated private/emergency-use only lift, which I once got into trouble for hijacking.

They got turfed-out in the early 00s when the floor was converted to a Neuro ward and since then, private rooms are allocated on an ad-hoc basis under a "Private Practice Policy" negotiated with consultants and the main private hospital in the area.

 

[SpookyFrank]

i could say much the same about the way you've decided to approach this, with frothing above and beyond the calls of duty (e.g. this charge is one step away from letting people skip the queue in a&e). if you think that the model is only sustainable by expanding charging across the trust then maybe looking into this a bit more might elucidate what is for many a very emotive topic. or just reading to the end of the article.

as for coming here with nothing, is that a crime now? i read your op and commented on it. it's what we do on urban.

I am looking into it. By starting a thread on here, amongst other things.

I now try and avoid internet-ese like 'IMO' because it's ugly and doesn't parse well in the reader's brain. Even so, it should be pretty obvious that anything I post here is just my opinion.

 

[SpookyFrank]

The main hospital here used to dedicate a whole floor for private use. First time I remember finding-out about it was in 1980. Many consultants also have private practices alongside their NHS work. The private floor was all single, en-suite rooms, with better food and service plus nurses in "traditional" nursing uniform - incl full-on capes with blood-red lining!

It also had a dedicated private/emergency-use only lift, which I once got into trouble for hijacking.

They got turfed-out in the early 00s when the floor was converted to a Neuro ward and since then, private rooms are allocated on an ad-hoc basis under a "Private Practice Policy" negotiated with consultants and the main private hospital in the area.

I'd always assumed that this sort of thing was all outside the NHS, with practitioners or private companies renting the space and making their own arrangements beyond that. So a different situation from people coming in as NHS patients and then being offered an in-house business class upgrade.