NHS staff flock to bargain Bupa deals

Figures obtained by Scotland on Sunday reveal Britain's biggest private insurer is giving NHS staff discounts of up to 636 a year under a controversial 'preferential scheme' for health workers.

Under the Bupa scheme, doctors and dentists receive a discount of around one third and nurses a discount of one-quarter off the standard price of health insurance.

This has led to a total of 31,000 health professionals joining the Bupacare private scheme, including 12,000 doctors (5% of the UK total) and 15,000 nurses (2%).

But senior doctors and patients' groups criticised the move, saying it suggested some NHS staff had no confidence in the service they were providing.

The disclosure comes in the wake of an admission from Scotland's biggest health board, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, that it is

in talks with private company Capita Health Solutions, to provide occupational health care for its staff, a scheme currently run in-house.

Peter Fisher, president of the NHS Consultants' Association, which campaigns on behalf of the NHS, said of the Bupa scheme: "This demonstrates a lack of confidence in the NHS services they are providing if they won't take it themselves."

Margaret Watt, chair of the Scotland Patients Association, said: "NHS patients are second class citizens. If NHS staff are getting private care, it makes it look like the NHS is not fit for purpose. Why are they doing this and yet telling us we have the best health care system in the world? This raises questions about ethics and smacks of a two-tier health system."

But Dr Hamish Meldrum, chairman of the British Medical Association's GP committee, said family doctors took out private health care because they were self-employed rather than because they lacked faith in the health service.

"Like any other self-employed people, when GPs are away, the services they provide suffer," he said.

"Until waiting list times fall even further, private heath care will buy faster treatment. If they did not believe so strongly in the NHS they would not work for it."

Bupa is Britain's biggest private health insurance firm, with three million patients, accounting for almost half of private medical care in the UK.

Last night the company insisted that offering a cut-price deal for health staff did not undermine the NHS.

Jason Pettit, head of sales operations at Bupa, said: "Some of the reasons people take out private health insurance include the availability of choice over who they are referred to and speed of access. They can also be treated at a time convenient to them. Doctors also tell us it gives them privacy – it can be difficult for a doctor or nurse to go for treatment at the hospital where they work.

"This gives them the ability to step outside the system to get the requisite degree of privacy.

"I don't believe this undermines their role as NHS employees. NHS consultants are hugely proud of the work they do and of the clinical standards of their hospitals. But they recognise what other people understand, that the demands on the medical service are enormous, with waiting lists for example. Privacy and fast treatment are important to them so they can get back to their jobs of caring for others."

Bupa targets doctors and nurses by advertising its cut-price rate in trade magazines and newspapers, as well as at conferences. All health workers are eligible for the discounts whether they work privately or in the NHS.

As well as the doctors and nurses, a total of 3,000 dentists and 1,000 other health workers have joined Bupa.

The firm also applies discounts for other professions, such as lawyers and teachers, with the size of the discount calculated on the likely risk of members of that profession needing medical attention.

The insurance firm's standard monthly charge for health insurance is 152 a month for a family of four but, at the discounted rate, it offers certain professional groups a discount depending on the work they do.

This means a 40-year-old doctor would pay just 99 for the same policy and a nurse just 115 a month. Nurses' premiums are higher because Bupa says they are more likely to suffer from work-related conditions such as backache.

Typical private health insurance policies offer patients cover for a wide range of inpatient and outpatient treatment including tests and diagnoses for a number of conditions including cancer and heart treatment. Private patients can choose which private hospital they would like to be treated in and which consultant they would like to see.