The Problem: The NHS has a backlog og 5 million patients it is struggling to clear.
The Solution: Fly people to get treatment in partner hospitals in developing countries.
The NHS waiting list stands at over 5 million, and is expected to grow as more people who didn’t get appointments during Covid lockdowns come forward for treatment.
The NHS is in Crisis, and needs a way to rapidly reduce this waiting list, reduce pressure, and buy some time and space to reform and become a world-class service once more.
Helping people go private could alleviate some of the waiting list, but not all, as the UK does not have that much capacity in private or public health.
Therefore, the government should develop relationships with partner hospitals in less developed countries and charter aircraft to send patients abroad for treatment and return them to the UK, all provided free of charge on the NHS.
If UK medical staff are based in these foreign facilities, they can ensure healthcare standards are kept high and provide the reassurance that many patients will require to get treatment abroad.
Many people already leave the UK for medical treatment in foreign countries where it is often cheaper, easier to access, and of a high standard. This proposal would open that option up to those unable to afford the costs themselves, or unsure of where is safe to go.
It offers perhaps the only hope to clear waiting lists quickly and save lives, and the costs of treatment will not be much higher (and indeed could be lower) than provision on the NHS.
The Best Marigold Hotel film offered a humorous and fictional account of what outsourcing old-age care to India might look like. Although such long-term care foreign arrangements have several challenges, shorter-term treatments abroad are eminently possible.
There is even an opportunity to use this process to invest in health infrastructure in developing countries so that capacity and quality is improved for the national population as well as the British NHS patients treated.
That would be a true win-win for everyone.
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