Foundation trusts’ private income limit could be dropped
pharmafile | March 11, 2009 | News story | |Â Â NHSÂ
The House of Lords is set to debate an amendment to the Health Bill which could remove the private patient income cap for foundation trusts.
Cross bench peer Baroness Meacher is behind the move which could end the cap – the vehicle which limits the proportion of income foundation trusts can gain from private patients. Her amendment, tabled on behalf of the Foundation Trust Network, would instead replace it with a requirement for hospitals to demonstrate how the private income is of benefit to NHS patients.
As recently as November, the government announced that patients would be allowed to pay private top-up fees for expensive drugs not recommended by NICE.
But it is possible that some hospitals may not be able to treat top-up patients because of the cap's limit.
Section 44 of the NHS Act 2006 creates a ceiling on the percentage of an NHS foundation trust's turnover that can come from the treatment of private patients.
They are restricted to the percentage of their income generated by these activities in 2002-03, which is used as the base financial year.
Private patients generated income of around £165 million for foundation trusts in the most recent financial year.
Sue Slipman, director of the Foundation Trust Network, said: "Any income foundation trusts can receive within the private patient cap brings more income into the NHS to improve access and services for NHS patients.
"Foundation trust income from all sources – including from private patients – is used to benefit NHS patients," she commented.
Without the cap, trusts would be able to more effectively use income from joint ventures for the good of NHS patients, Slipman believes.
The Network also argues that the cap poses a serious obstacle for the building of integrated care services as set out in the Darzi review, potentially restricting patient choice.
It will also impinge on their legal obligations under the cross-border healthcare directive, it says, issued last July by the European Commission and due to be read in the European Parliament this year.
This aims to standardise patients' rights when they receive medical treatment in other member states.
Monitor, the independent regulator of foundation trusts, issued the results of its own consultation on the interpretation and application of the cap in December.
This came to the conclusion that income from all joint venture and associate arrangements will count towards the cap.
When contacted for comment about the House of Lords debate, a Monitor spokeswoman told Pharmafocus: "We don't have anything new to add at this stage."
Top-up fees were given the green light after a series of high profile cases in which NHS treatment was denied to cancer sufferers who had paid for drugs themselves.
Related stories:
Medicine top-ups to be allowed
Wednesday, November 05, 2008
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