Shared Care Agreements with Private Providers
Our focus at Heaton Mersey is to ensure the highest quality of care for our patients whilst also maintaining the integrity and sustainability of our service. As a practice, we empathise and share our patient’s frustration at long waiting lists in secondary care and have come to this decision due to a significant increase in the number of requests from private providers.
This policy applies to all ‘amber medicines’ that fall under shared care policy as determined by Greater Manchester Medicines Management Group. (Welcome to GMMMG – GMMMG)
Heaton Mersey Medical Practice will not enter into any shared care agreements for any indication with private providers. This decision is based on guidance from our Local Medical Committee as well as the following considerations:
Specialist Oversight
There is significant concern regarding lack of continuity of care and ongoing consultant input after treatment is initiated. Should a patient decide to discontinue their private treatment, the loss of specialist oversight could compromise care. This may lead to gaps in treatment or monitoring which increases risk to patient safety.
Quality Assurance
Private providers may not have undergone the same robust quality assessment procedures as NHS commissioned services. The NHS has stringent standards and services require registration and inspections by the Care Quality Commission to ensure patient safety and high-quality care.
Workload Pressures
Entering into shared care agreements with private providers places significant additional workload pressures on our practice. This includes increased administrative tasks, pharmacy input and overall clinical responsibility. Given the current demands on NHS services, it is not feasible to take on the additional responsibilities without impacting the care we provide to our NHS patients.
NHS Constitution Principles
The NHS Constitution emphasises the importance of maintaining a clear separation between private and NHS care. Engagement in private shared care agreements may blur these lines and promote health inequalities.
Patients who choose to pay privately to see a consultant or opt to be referred to a private service via Right To Choose pathways will need to pay for their medication as part of private treatment. These prescriptions will need to be privately prescribed. We cannot make any exceptions.
We have several patients who are already receiving amber list medications through the surgery under a shared care agreement with a private service. We will be contacting these patients to either arrange a referral to an NHS consultant or advise them to arrange monitoring and prescribing privately. We understand that this will be extremely disappointing to these patients but hope that the information in this policy outlines the reasons for this decision.
If any of our patients are receiving medication from a private doctor we would advise them to let the surgery know so that we can ensure that there are no potential interactions with other treatments.