Crackdown on screening proposed

Insurers offering private medical insurance and health cash plans have had a shock.

 

Health screening is increasingly seen as a vital component in helping people be pro-active in keeping themselves healthy.

 

Government advisors want to add health screening to the list of industries it closely regulates.

 

The National Screening Committee is considering how best to regulate the industry. It is worried there are too few checks ( their words ! ) on the sector.

 

Tests cost from £10 for a cholesterol check to thousands for a body scan. Rather than be pleased that people are paying for their own screening, government advisors are unhappy. They are moaning that if a health screen suggests a person may have a problem, that they then go to the NHS for further checks – which they claim are often unnecessary.

 

The logic of this may defeat you. You pay out good money for insurance which includes free or discounted health screening. The screen does what it aims to do, give you early warning of a potential health problem. Instead of ignoring it, you do the right thing and go to your GP or hospital. Now you are wrong as identifying a potential problem means the NHS wants to run checks before treating you.

 

For years the NHS has moaned that it costs more to treat people with an illness that has taken hold, than use preventative and early interventionist techniques. Now, people are being told off for doing exactly this, and using private screening to identify the problem.

Perhaps the NHS wants to follow the example of one of the first hospitals in the UK which kept down patient numbers by refusing entry to anyone who was obviously ill.

 

The government advisors do not seem to have understood that people going to the NHS after screening, and regulating the industry are two completely different problems.

 

No health insurer is going to argue that those providing health screens must be professional. This is why some limit the screening cover to screens by a named company.

 

If this regulation goes ahead, insurers would have either to limit health screening cover to named companies, or to those who are regulated.

 

Sir Muir Gray, programme director of the National Screening Committee, wants the whole health screening industry to face close scrutiny and tough new regulations.

 

Sir Muir says: "We are thinking of how we control private testing because it's an example of low value activity which generates work for the health service, may cause harm and does not benefit the individual."

 

Dr Peter Mace, BUPA Wellness' Assistant Medical Director says: "We refute the allegation that health assessments cause patients anxiety. Our experience is quite the opposite. We identify a health issue for around a third of customers which they were previously unaware of."

 

Of course, if you pay for health screening directly or through insurance, and then seek treatment privately, you will avoid upsetting those overworked souls at the NHS by wanting tests and treatment.