THERE is an itch that is hard to scratch over John Radcliffe staff ‘moonlighting’ in their private time to tackle the Oxford hospital’s NHS backlog.

It is difficult to demonise Enda McVeigh, the JR gynaecologist who is also a director of the company being paid by the NHS to take cases from his own waiting list.

He and the company, Oxford Fertility Unit, are merely doing what the system allows.

But it is disconcerting that JR staff are doing their day jobs and then, at an additional cost to the taxpayer, working on patients who, it could be reasonably expected, should have been treated by the NHS during ‘business hours’.

This may be a simple comparison but we also report today on the continuing delayed post from before Christmas. What would be the reaction if posties were doing their rounds as normal, knocking off and then, having set up a private company, coming back in to sort whatever post they’d missed?

The problem has arisen because of the dilemma with managing waiting lists – the hospital has to ensure patients are treated within specified Government-set time limits.

However, if the resources do not allow these patients to be treated by the NHS within that timeframe then surely the answer is to spend the money increasing capacity and paying staff overtime to clear backlogs rather than putting money into the private sector.