LABOUR’S Health Secretary has “set alarm bells ringing” after backing private, for-profit investment in the NHS, the SNP have warned.
On Monday, Wes Streeting told the BBC that there was a “role” for the private sector funding in the public health service – but also cautioned against making the same mistakes as the last Labour government.
Asked whether he is prepared to go back to private finance initiative (PFI) schemes – in which private firms built hospitals and repayments were made over the long term – Streeting said: “Well, the Chancellor has delivered the biggest capital allocation for the NHS since Labour was last in power, but I don’t pretend that there aren’t still enormous challenges because of the size of the capital shortfall …
“So I’m actually very sympathetic to the argument that we should try and leverage in private finance.
“The big caveat I would add, however, is that, while I’m enormously proud of the record of the last Labour government, which delivered the shortest waiting times and the highest patient satisfaction in history, many of those PFI deals did lumber the NHS with an enormous cost that it continues to bear.
“So I think we’ve got to tread cautiously and carefully in this area. I think there is a role for private investment, but the terms of those arrangements – that’s where you’ve got to tread really carefully.
“But I’m open to serious proposals from the NHS, or indeed anyone else.”
Responding to the top Labour MP’s comments, the SNP’s health spokesperson at Westminster, Seamus Logan, said: “Wes Streeting’s admission that people in Scotland, and across the UK, are still paying an unacceptable price for the Labour Party’s bungled private finance contracts is long overdue.
“The Labour Party has cost taxpayers in Scotland billions of pounds in wasted money that was sent to private companies when it could otherwise have been spent on the NHS and frontline services.
“The Labour Party has taken thousands of pounds in donations from individuals and organisations with an interest in privatising the NHS – and it will set alarm bells ringing that the Labour Government Health Secretary wants to open the NHS up to profit-driven private sector groups.
“In contrast, the SNP Government will always stand by the core principles of our NHS, delivering more funding, more doctors and nurses, and better outcomes than the NHS under Labour Party.”
Gillian Mackay, the Scottish Greens’ health spokesperson, also criticised the Health Secretary, saying that “no matter what the issue is, Wes Streeting’s solution always seems to be more private healthcare”.
“I’m glad that he seems to recognise the huge debts that were piled-on by PFI, which makes it all the more inexplicable that he wants private health companies to have an even bigger role than they already do,” she went on.
“I hope that Anas Sarwar and his colleagues will distance themselves from the pro-private healthcare vision that is being pushed by Wes Streeting and the vested interests who have bankrolled the Labour Party.
“Healthcare is a right and should not be treated as a business opportunity for companies who are far more interested in profit than they are in public health.”
Scottish Labour did not respond when asked for their position on Streeting’s calls for greater private sector investment in the NHS.
Last year, after the General Election, Scottish Labour depute leader Jackie Baillie was asked if she would like to see the Scottish Government mirror Streeting's plans for greater private capacity to be used by the NHS.
She said: “Yes and I’ve had discussions with Wes Streeting about the challenges we face both in the NHS in England but also specifically the NHS in Scotland.”
