More New Labour barriers to health care

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We have discussed on many occasions the various ways that New Labour is restricting GP's access to hospital doctors by insisting that referrals are “triaged” so that “inappropriate” ones can be refused, or sent to unqualified hospital staff such as our dear friends the nurse specialists.

It is not just GPs who are being treated in this fashion. Barriers are being erected to stop hospital doctors getting appropriate care for their patients as well. We have just received this letter from the Director of Primary Care Restriction at the PCT.

Study it carefully. This is a classic New Labour strategy for saving money by preventing NHS patients from getting appropriate and timely medical care.

Primary Care Development

7th November 2006

Dear Colleagues,

I am writing to you to update you on the PCT position with recent discussions with the local hospital in regards to Consultant to Consultant and Tertiary referrals. These changes have come into effect from the 1st November 2006

All Consultant to Consultant referrals will be referred back to the patients GP for approval. If this is then approved by the GP the referral then needs to be sent back through to the CAS to be forwarded to the relevant Consultant.

All Tertiary referrals will be sent through to the CAS where the CAS will then contact the patients GP for referral approval. The PCT has agreed with the hospital that all Tertiary referrals will need to be sent to the CAS to allow for payments for Tertiary referrals to be processed.

However, referrals for clinically urgent patients (including life or limb threatening conditions) which cannot wait three working days, will be referred on with a copy letter sent to the CAS.

Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any further queries.

Yours sincerely





Primary Care Development

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What does this mean? Is this a new scheme to empower GPs? To put them in control? That is what New Labour will tell you. But it is not true. Let us look at what is really going on. Let us look at the real agenda.

Imagine you are ill in the local district general hospital (DGH) under the care of the respiratory physicians. They find out that the reason you are short of breath is not, as they had thought, COPD but in fact your hitherto undiagnosed heart valve disease. So, whilst you are in hospital, they get the cardiologists to come and see you. Not any more they don’t. They send you home. Then they write to CAS asking them to get your GPs permission for the referral. And CAS write to your GP and say, “Would you mind if the respiratory physicians refer your patient to the heart specialists?” And the GP writes back and says, “Of course not, please do.” That process will take several weeks. Finally, CAS send the referral to cardiology and in due course you receive an appointment to be seen in cardiology out-patients. The waiting list for cardiology outpatients is sixteen weeks.

Sixteen weeks later, the cardiologists see you in out-patients at the local DGH and find that you need a heart-valve replacement. So they send you to the tertiary cardiology centre in London to have it done. Not any more they don’t. They send you home. Then they write to CAS and ask them to get your GPs permission for the referral. And CAS write to your GP and say, “Would you mind if the cardiologists refer your patient to the tertiary cardiac centre in London?” And the GP writes back and says, “Of course not, please do.” That process takes several weeks. Finally, CAS send a referral to the tertiary centre. The waiting list for the tertiary centre outpatient department is sixteen weeks. Another sixteen weeks.

When you finally get to the tertiary cardiology centre outpatients, the keen young registrar examines you very carefully, and finds that you have an eight centimetre abdominal aneurysm that needs operating on before they can do the heart valve. So he refers you to the vascular surgeons. Not any more he doesn’t. He sends you home and….

And so we go on. And on and on. And round and round and round. New Labour controls introduced under the guise of improving health care but in reality restricting access to it.

The real agenda is cost cutting achieved by depriving patients of their access to hospital specialists.

You can, as always, avoid all this. Go privately. If you can afford it after the school fees.