Private medical insurance (PMI) providers are exploring contingency plans to maintain treatment should private hospital capacity be taken over for NHS work, but do not believe significant numbers of their patients will be affected.
This week the NHS in England entered into a three month agreement with 10 private hospital groups including Spire, Nuffield and Circle to support the health service if the Omicron variant leads to unsustainable levels of hospitalisations or staff absences.
In response, WPA told Health & Protection it had been investigating the possible knock-on effects of the deal on its customers.
“We are liaising with the Independent Healthcare Providers Network to help ascertain the impact of any surge capacity provided by the independent sector, and understand that our customers will continue to be able to access private facilities in the vast majority of cases,” it said.
But WPA also reiterated its commitment to not profit from the pandemic.
“Should it transpire that access to private healthcare is restricted we stand by the commitment we made in March 2020 not to profit from the Covid pandemic – a commitment demonstrated by being the first insurer to pay a rebate in April 2020 and followed with a second in June 2020.”
Alternative options
Other insurers said they were also in contact with hospitals and have contingency plans in place to offer customers alternative options if necessary.
In a statement Aviva said: “If NHS Trusts or systems need to trigger the surge element of the new deal, routine services at an independent sector site will be temporarily suspended to make facilities and staff available to the health service with all cases being seen based on clinical priority.
“We are in regular contact with the hospitals to make sure we know where and when this will be happening, and if it does, will be able to offer our customers alternative options if they do not want to wait for their local hospital to be available again for routine services.”
Axa Health released a statement in which it said: “We support the arrangement between NHS England and independent healthcare organisations that has given rise to this and fully understand the need for independent facilities to go on standby to support the NHS.
“At present this does not impact any private services, and should the arrangements be required on a local basis, we are reassured that urgent services will be protected for all patients.”
Finally, Vitality revealed it has been in regular contact with its private providers around capacity to ensure its members can access the care and treatment they need.
“We anticipate under this new agreement, a small amount of people requiring non urgent care may experience a short delay to any treatment starting, but any such delay would be rescheduled as quickly as possible,” a spokesperson added.
Bupa did not respond to questions from Health & Protection about its plans for dealing with restricted private hospital capacity.