SDEF - News Item - Doctors call for Royal Commission to review co-payments

Doctors attending the BMA’s annual conference in Edinburgh yesterday said they believed that patients should have the choice to purchase treatment that is not available on the NHS while still continuing to receive the rest of their treatment and medication on the health service.

However, the conference stopped short of demanding the introduction of co-payments and instead called on the Government to set up a Royal Commission to review all the evidence and allow a wider debate to take place.

The following motion was passed by doctors at the BMA conference:

That this meeting:

• recognises that not all treatments and medications are available to patients on the health service equitably across the UK;
• believes that patients should have the choice to purchase non health service treatments and medications if they wish and still receive the rest of their treatment and medication on the health service without being forced to pay for all their treatment privately;
• required that the Health Departments recognise that banning co-payments denies patients treatments that may be to their benefit and forces patients to accept healthcare rationing;
• calls on the government to set up a Royal Commission to review all the evidence and implications for the NHS and patients and report with recommendations by summer 2009.

If the government were to introduce co-payments, doctors said that there should be the following safeguards:

• the introduction of co-payments must not be a route to extend NHS user charges.
• any co-payments be introduced only after a mechanism is devised to prevent the extension of NHS user charges.

Commenting after the debate, Dr Hamish Meldrum said: “In principle doctors believe that patients should have the choice to buy additional treatment that is not available on the NHS, without being forced to pay for all their treatment privately.

“However, they stopped short of asking for co-payments to be introduced until there has been a wider debate with the profession and public and the evidence has been collected and examined. Doctors recognised that there were many potential problems with introducing co-payments and suggested a number of safeguards they would wish to see considered were they to be introduced.”

10/07/08- Doctors call for Royal Commission to review co-payments