Row over hospital bill to go private

Nov 9 2005 By Alison Dayani, Birmingham Mail

A TROUBLED hospital with £12 million debts has spent more than £2 million on sending patients for private treatment.

Nearly 200 workers and some wards at Good Hope Hospital, Sutton Coldfield, face the axe as bosses battle to break even.

New documents today revealed a massive bill to the NHS for sending dozens of Good Hope patients for operations at Little Aston private hospital.

Although Good Hope has been in the red since 2002, £2.1million has been paid for treatment at Little Aston over the past three years - to meet waiting time targets.

Mark Oley, from East Birmingham Public and Patient Involvement Forum, said he was appalled.

"Sending patients private has undermined the stability of Good Hope.

"It's a disgrace that taxpayers' money being used to destabilise the NHS, force Good Hope to make cutbacks and get rid of badly-needed staff."

The Birmingham Mail revealed in March that hospital bosses were sending patients to go private.

Freedom of Information documents now show that £150,000 that was spent at Little Aston Hospital last year and £1.3 million the year before.

Dr Mark Goldman, who took over as chief executive of Good Hope this month, confirmed the figures and said the use of private hospitals would reduce now that Heart of Birmingham Trust had taken over management from private firm Tribal Secta.

"Good Hope has suffered from limited capacity and increasing demands for its services, leading to the use of private facilities.

"Recently, staff have worked extra hard and theatres have been opened for longer hours to reduce the need to use private hospitals.

"This will further reduce with the opening of the treatment centre and it is very much an issue of the past."

Dr Goldman added that a financial recovery plan made by Tribal Secta to make redundancies was currently being reviewed.

East Birmingham Patient and Public Involvement Forum discusses Good Hope's spending at 6pm tonight in Birmingham Council House.

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