Letters: Outsourcing operations

It is with interest that I am following the unfolding story about private ophthalmology companies providing NHS cataract services. The Centre for Health and Public Interest (CHPI) report entitled ‘Out of Sight – the hidden impact of cataract outsourcing on NHS eye care departments’ and The Guardian article ‘Boom in cataract surgery in England as private clinics eye huge profits’ both have a similar narrative that private providers are starving the NHS Trusts of desperately needed funds.  

The narrative goes that these funds are a cross subsidy for other treatments and are needed to train new ophthalmologists. There is also the inevitable mention of the impact of Covid – in this case the president of the Royal College of Ophthalmologists saying the outsourcing had been ‘a good thing immediately after Covid to get cataract waiting lists under control’.