Patients undergoing private treatment protocol
There can be many good reasons why you might wish to choose non NHS treatment, whether it is because of shorter waiting times, a personal recommendation or perhaps because you benefit from membership of a private medical scheme.
Whatever your choice, it is important for you to know about the limitations to NHS treatments related to any private medical treatment you have received.
As with all NHS care, once a patient is referred to a hospital or other health care provider the responsibility for care for that episode passes to the chosen provider. They remain responsible for all service aspects, procedures and follow-ups until they discharge the patient back to their GP. The same also applies to private providers.
All pre-treatment connected with your private care is the responsibility of the provider you have chosen, for example:
- All pre-operative checks.
- Assessments.
- Pathology, including all blood tests, biopsies and other tests.
- All physiological checks, such as BPs, ECG’s etc.
- All diagnostic imaging, such as X-rays, ultrasounds, Ct’s and MRI0.
You can not elect to have some parts of these undertaken by the NHS and others by your private provider.
Your provider must arrange these privately as part of your care package, so it is important to make sure you have budgeted for them, or that your personal medical insurance policy covers these costs. This is to enable your safe continuity of care, for which they have become responsible. All post operative care is also the responsibility of the private health provider you have chosen.
Any complaints relating to your care, or the level of service you have received from your private provider, needs to be directed to them. We can not become involved in dealing with third party complaints. Your provider should have their own complaints policy which should be readily available to you.
We hope this will clarify some of the more common questions asked by patients when making decisions about choosing private care.
Shared Care Policy
What are Shared Care Agreements?
Shared care is when a specialist asks a GP practice to take on responsibility for prescribing and monitoring medications usually only issued by specialists. This might happen if you have been referred for a specific issue, a specialist has made a diagnosis and put a treatment plan in place, or if you choose to go to a private clinic.
These agreements require all parties to accept shared care, and the ultimate responsibility for prescribing and monitoring remains with the specialist/ private provider.
Shared care agreements are not a ‘core’ part of our work in general practice. By that, we mean they are not part of our NHS contract and not something we receive any additional support or resources to provide.
A GP can refuse a shared care agreement if he or she is not happy with the burden of responsibility it puts on the GP. The consultant/private provider must then take full responsibility for prescribing medication and completing any necessary monitoring.
Background
We reviewed our shared care agreement policy due to the growing number of requests we receive from an increasingly large number of private providers.
These requests place an increasing amount of work on our practice team, and at times, this additional workload is impacting our ability to deliver our core services to you, our patients.
Our concern is that, without adequate resources to deal with this increasing demand, we can’t continue to assure ourselves that patients are safely monitored to the highest standards of care.
What this may mean for patients
If there is a shared care agreement in place for your care, this will continue.
For patients with new treatment plans put in place by specialists/private providers, responsibility for prescribing and monitoring your medication will remain solely with your specialist/private provider.