Topping up NHS care

摘要

Professor Mike Richards' review, Improving Access to Medicines for NHS Patients, has rejected top-up fees on the grounds of equity and efficiency but has recommended that patients will be able to retain their NHS treatment and pay for drugs not sanctioned by the NHS as long as the NHS does not end up subsidising the additional privately purchased care in any way.1 Any private additions to NHS care will be permitted only when they can be delivered at a separate time and place to the patient's NHS care-a compromise that Richards considers has "the fewest downsides."