‘Up to 300 million treatments at risk’: private sector raises the alarm over waiting lists
At least 1 million treatments a day could be suspended: NHS-affiliated centres are up in arms over the new NHS fees
Key points
A shortfall of 1 million treatments per day: if accredited healthcare providers were to withdraw from the National Health Service scheme, the system would lose an average of between 1 and 1.2 million treatments per day, or between 250 and 300 million treatments per year.
This figure is enough to make one’s hands tremble – in a context where 6 million citizens are going without treatment in our country, essentially for financial reasons and due to already extremely long waiting lists that exclude at least 2.8 million procedures from the timeframes set by law – comes from two of the leading associations representing accredited private laboratories and clinics, which are up in arms against the new National Tariff for specialist outpatient and prosthetic services, drawn up by the Ministry of Health following a series of appeals that these very organisations had lodged with the Regional Administrative Court (TAR) against previous drafts, which were branded as inadequate in terms of remuneration.
The threat of the ‘pure’ private sector
Now, with the new ‘price list’ due to come into force on 21 September, the National Union of Clinics and Outpatient Centres (UAP) and FederAnisap are hinting at a drastic decision precisely because of the impossibility – they warn – to cover costs (starting with staff costs), for which the fees, even when updated, do not even keep pace with inflation. The prospect is to shift entirely to the private sector, converting their operations and bidding farewell to the National Health Service (SSN), which, however, currently has a more than solid foundation in its accreditation system. Moreover, the SSN has seen a gradual increase in spending limits in recent years.
FederAnisap president Valter Rufini explains the cause for alarm and the protest: “Withdrawing from the accreditation scheme,” he states, “is not an ideological choice, but a measure of economic survival that the Ministry of Health risks forcing us to take. “If the authorities do not recognise the true cost of services,” he says, “the National Health Service will permanently lose its local network, placing the entire burden of care on the public.”
In the meantime, the first step is an urgent call for a permanent crisis and consultation forum with the Ministry of Health and the State-Regions Conference, to plan “a periodic and transparent review of prices”, analysing the actual cost of services in order to establish a reliable tariff basis, to be indexed annually. In the absence of timely corrective measures, “we will be forced to take strong action”, the private sector has announced.
