Letter: How to transform Northern Ireland health care system - a possible solution

1. Legislate for private companies, and public sector organisations, that pay corporation tax to provide private health insurance for all employees.

These companies will incur a cost in doing so, and to help offset this cost the NI Executive can introduce a reduced rate of corporation tax to, say, 12.5%.

2. There’s a cost to the NI budget from reducing corporation tax to levels found in the Republic of Ireland, and which are estimated at £300 million per annum.

How to offset costs: firstly, hundreds of thousands of individuals will be switched from the NHS to private healthcare. The budget allocated to the health department can be slashed.

Secondly, the NHS estate can be significantly reduced to reflect its smaller size, which can reduce annual running costs, and sale or lease of land and buildings can bring in further revenue.

3. There is considerable animosity to the private healthcare sector among some political groups. However, this proposal doesn't remove the NHS and instead it proposes a NHS-plus-plus-plus that prioritises the private sector workforce.

Why? Private companies benefit exponentially from having a healthy workforce, and so does the Treasury as this workforce then pays taxes instead of relying upon welfare payments.

Lastly, in short, a deft piece of financial engineering can make a huge difference to the way that we treat key workers and improve efficiency.

Dr Bernard Mulholland, Belfast BT9