Legal Opinion

 Combining NHS and private treatment

The legal opinion from a leading barrister who is a Queen´s Counsel and an eminent practitioner in the field of public law addresses two principal issues:

• The extent to which an individual has a legal right to insist upon the provision of particular treatments by the NHS regardless of cost and
• The freedom for individuals to move between NHS and private treatment.

Nigel Giffin QC´s view is that

• There is no bar in law to a patient buying drugs and having them administered as part of NHS treatment
• There is no reason in principle why patients should not move between private and NHS treatment if required
• There is nothing stopping a patient receiving both private and state treatment for the same condition at the same time providing this is clinically appropriate.

There is no bar in law to a patient buying his own drugs and having them administered as part of a course of NHS treatment. If that is right, it would seem to follow as a matter of logic that, if the only reason why the relevant NHS body would otherwise refuse to provide a course of treatment is the cost of the drugs involved, and if the patient is willing and able to take that cost out of the equation, then refusal to provide the treatment would be irrational and unlawful.

It would be impermissible for an NHS body to refuse treatment in such circumstances merely on account of philosophy or feeling that, if patients without the means of acquiring the necessary drugs cannot have them administered by the NHS, then it should not be possible for anyone to do so.

It may be unlawful for the NHS to deny people to fund their own drugs

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