Or it could just be a cynical move from the BMA to try to show the old we need more money,higher wages,more managers on the NHS.
Cute accounting from the inside out. The NHS management won't want efficiency to be seen. It's all about the money I reckon.
It was pre paid care, why not use it; that's the question that needs asking.

I cannot imagine that this was the NHS, more likely the Private places being tricky. Private hospitals aren’t there to get their hands dirty. They are there to take £000’s from the Insurer for doing a bit of work on your knee or some other specific body part. In and out. “We’ve replaced your knee, your insurer has paid us, now f**k off.”

They’re not there for emergencies - it’s why you get an amount per day back from your private health insurer, if you spend time in an NHS Hospital. Last thing your average private hospital wants to do is have long term sick patients or emergency stuff. It buggers the model up - too costly with too small returns, too risky for staff and too tricky to price.

So many companies now offer private health care as part of the employment package as it gets their staff looked at quickly and back to work. It’s lucrative for everyone. If you clog it up with emergencies or general treatment then waiting lists there will go up and employers may think twice about that cost if it doesn’t make as much difference. Private hospitals won’t want to damage the model as health insurance work has to be their major cash cow.

That there are so many consultants doing half a day NHS and four and a half private also hasn’t helped the NHS. (A sort of ‘I’m spending most of my time treating those that can afford to pay me to be treated rather than those who deserve, need or can’t afford it’). When they’re on the TV slagging off NHS funding or pay you never hear them mention how much they earn, on the side, from the private sector. (NOT nurses - Doctors and Consultants - to qualify that point).

The model remains broken. It’s only a matter of time (with this bloody Govt) before we see a “Thorpe Park” style fast track system coming into it one day - a sort of NHS/Private hybrid where you can pay more for quicker NHS care - just to really ram it home to the poor and increase the divide.

Just my opinion.

Why shouldn't a doctor or consultant do both. As long as they do their contracted NHS hours then it's fine. If the NHS management aren't strong enough to tie them down to more hours whose fault is that; not the quacks!

Why not indeed?-although tell that to the person at the back of the 5 million queue needing an urgent operation -without the plumbers wad in his/her pocket to go private! As for the nhs should pay them enough- you better ask bungle mate , he promised them a big pay rise after their heroic covid effort, only to deliver a pay cut after inflation! Mind you, they were stupid to believe bunble, he is a CON, who knew?

Excuse me…Please do show us where Boris ‘promised them a big pay rise’ ?!