Several surgical procedures currently available on the NHS could be axed to save money, including liposuction and breast implant removal.
Health chiefs proposed that the cuts be made to the service in a bid to save up to £2 billion, by cracking down on "wasteful" spending in the NHS. It comes as Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is expected to announce tax rises and spending cuts in this week's Autumn Statement, in a bid to fill a "black hole" of up to £50 billion in the country's finances.
NHS medical director Professor Sir Stephen Powis said that bosses are hoping to improve efficiency in the NHS and focus on the most effective treatments by making the suggested cuts, The Mirror reports. More than seven million people in the UK are currently on a waiting list to have surgery on the NHS.
The list of which surgeries should be scrapped has been drawn up by NHS chiefs with assistance from senior medics at the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges. They advised that the operations on the list should lose routine funding, adding that certain procedures should only be performed under specific criteria.
Professor Powis told The Telegraph that NHS bosses have already cracked down on "medications and interventions that are of low value for patients and take money away from the public purse". He added that health chiefs routinely review treatments available on the NHS to ensure that taxpayers' money is not being wasted.
A spokesperson for the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges said: "Any money saved from procedures which the evidence tells us are no longer clinically appropriate is spent on procedures which are. Medicine is constantly evolving and the Evidence-based Interventions programme is about capturing those clinical advances and making sure we offer the best and most appropriate care to the greatest number of people."
Full list of NHS surgeries that could be scrapped:
- Male gynaecomastia reduction surgery
- Breast prosthesis removal
- Corrective surgery for congenital breast asymmetry
- Optical coherence tomography (OCT) use in diabetic retinopathy referral
- Shared decision-making for cataract surgery
- Glaucoma referral criteria
- Thyroid nodule referral and investigation
- Asymptomatic carotid artery stenosis screening
- Management of abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAAs)
- Liposuction
- Diastasis recti repair
- Angioplasty for PCI (percutaneous coronary intervention) in stable angina
- Non-visible haematuria
- Needle biopsy of prostate
- Penile circumcision
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