Use of Independant Sector

The following letter was sent to a number of Scottish Newspapers and was published in the Scotsman on 24th May 2000. The content of the letter outlines the IHM Scotland Policy on the of Use of the Independent Sector.

Dear Sir/Madam,

Modernising the NHS

The Scottish Executive’s proposals for modernising the NHS and the associated additional resources have met with a massive welcomed within the service and rightly so.

Highlighting bed blocking in acute hospitals as a complex issue to be resolved by joint working with the local authorities makes absolute good sense. However, to rule out any role for the independent sector without at least giving it some consideration is "daft" to quote John Denham, the Minster of Health for England, commenting on exactly the same topic. To recognise that a multi-strand approach is needed and then dismiss one of the possible solutions seems short-sighted and hardly consistent with any type of partnership approach.

The Institute has some 1000 members in Scotland employed very largely in mainstream NHS management.

It is absolutely committed to the principles of the NHS but recognises that problems as long-standing as bed blocking may require some type of lateral solutions.

Incidentally, we are all guilty, myself included, of using bed blocking as some form of shorthand. The phrase conjures up some type of institutional/systems glitch in the NHS which does not involve patients. We must always remember we are talking about individuals, mainly the elderly, receiving a model of care in high-tech hospitals totally inappropriate to their current needs and also at disproportionate cost to the taxpayer.

Yours faithfully

Donald McNeill
Secretary