Treatment choice lost from report

Draft reports show the independent panel advising the Government on the public health system was advocating patients be able to choose surgery in a private or a public hospital.

The radical proposal would have seen the Government funding the surgery rather than paying a district health board to carry out the operation.

However, the idea barely gets a mention in the final report produced by the ministerial review group that was released by Health Minister Tony Ryall last weekend.

That was despite the suggestion to put public and private hospitals "on a level playing field" featuring in a number of earlier drafts of the report.

The proposal - which mirrors Act's policy of choice of competing healthcare products - would have come under fire from opponents. They would have portrayed it as another step towards privatising the delivery of social services by making it easier for people to get treatment at private hospitals, thus enabling the running down of public hospital services.

The Labour Party has accused Mr Ryall of culling controversial material from the report in order to "sanitise" it before release.

The Health Minister has strenuously denied issuing any instructions to have the report's recommendations altered or dropped altogether. He also tabled in Parliament copies of drafts he had received before the report's release, presumably in the interests of greater transparency.

The review group has been chaired by the former head of the Treasury, Murray Horn. Its membership included the Director-General of Health, Stephen McKernan, plus a number of prominent physicians and experienced health practitioners.

While the draft recommendation for greater choice will be seized upon by the Government's critics as evidence of creeping privatisation in the health sector, the draft reports warn that greater patient choice may not necessarily be welcomed by private hospitals and the private health insurers, who are already facing "untaxed and Government-guaranteed public hospital competitors".