Is pressure easing on the National Health Service?
Should NHS patients be treated in private hospitals? And should they be sent abroad for treatment? These are some of the thorny issues facing the health service today – and they’ll top the agenda at this year’s British Medical Association conference in Harrogate. Breakfast spoke to one patient, John McCaul, who spent two years on an NHS waiting list before being one of the pioneer group of patients to be treated in France earlier this year. A lack of training places is delaying doctors becoming GPs – and that is not the only NHS staffing problem, the British Medical Association has said ahead of its annual conference. Recruitment and retention of NHS staff has become a major problem for the government in recent months. It was reported on Sunday that ministers’ plans to boost the NHS with overseas staff have run into trouble, sparking complaints from 19 foreign governments. The BMA – the doctors’ trade union – found that among 500 medical graduates who qualified in 1995, many were havin
