Privatisation is the cause of the crisis in the NHS… not the cure

By Colin Fox, SSP Co-Spokesperson

IN HER RECENT BUDGET, Rachel Reeves declared that “ending the crisis in the NHS” was one of her top priorities. And well she might, because on her watch the NHS has put record numbers onto waiting lists, with many patients facing agonising delays of two to three years for vital treatment.

Others routinely sit in A&E departments for twelve hours or more before receiving attention. Thousands died last year while waiting for life-saving care. Health boards across Britain have been criticised for poor maternity care and mental health provision. And all this before another “winter bed crisis” sees more people being left in draughty corridors and hospital cupboards.

This is what the worst crisis the National Health Service has ever seen looks like. Central to the problems are staff shortages and lack of equipment. The NHS has been starved of the resources necessary to provide universal healthcare fit for the twenty-first century.

So, how does Rachel Reeves propose to address this failure The short answer is by privatising even more of the service. She has announced plans to build 250 much-needed neighbourhood health centres, but via the discredited private finance model. These facilities are to be owned by private commercial companies.

This is not the way to cure the NHS of its ills.

The 80 existing PFI hospitals across Britain on average cost three times more than if they had been built by the NHS itself. In the case of Hairmyres Hospital in East Kilbride (one of eight PFIs in Scotland) the cost to the public purse was four times higher. Over three decades, PFI contracts have been a multi-billion-pound drain on NHS funds.

Thatcher’s idea, implemented by Labour PFI was Thatcher’s idea. But she was rejected by the electorate before implementing it fully. In stepped Tony Blair and his “partner in crime” Gordon Brown, who argued it didn’t matter who owned the hospitals provided they delivered for patients.

Well, it turns out it did matter. And they didn’t deliver for patients. The record shows PFI was an unmitigated disaster for the NHS. It was ripped off so comprehensively that cuts were made to the rest of the service to pay for it. The final cost will run to several hundred billion pounds.

PFI “worked” for shareholders of companies like Macquarie Capital Solutions Ltd of Sydney, Australia (the biggest PFI operators in the world), who bought, among other facilities, Edinburgh’s Sick Kids hospital — sold to them by the SNP government at Holyrood.

Even the Tories now admit PFI represents bad value for money. These private companies took billions in profit out of the NHS. Money that was earmarked for patient care didn’t get there. Now Rachel Reeves is urging us to go back down the same hole.

There is no alternative, she argues, as the nation’s finances are so indebted. Public money cannot be spent on these new facilities, whether they are urgently needed or not, she insists.

The NHS is in a state, it’s true. But the crisis is in large part due to the cost of these PFI contracts. The Scottish Socialist Party believes PFI is the disease that has undermined the NHS. It is not the cure. We would renegotiate all existing contracts to the advantage of the public purse.

Reckless & unpopular Privatisation is not only financially reckless, it is politically unpopular. Voters recognise it undermines the founding principles upon which the NHS was built in 1947.

Those principles maintained that it must be free at the point of need, universally available, paid for out of general taxation and publicly owned and run. PFI is at odds with those values. The facilities are privately owned and run for profit. And that profit is diverted from patient care and from providing the necessary staffing.

The public needs to protect the NHS from a Labour government that does not support its founding principles. Moreover, as health spending is devolved, Scotland has the opportunity to ensure these neighbourhood health centres are publicly owned and run, not built using PFIs.

The Scottish Socialist Party’s record in campaigning against PFI is unrivalled. We were at the forefront of opposing the privatisation of Edinburgh’s Royal Infirmary by Labour in 2000, and the sell-off of the Royal Hospital for Children and Young People at Little France by the SNP in 2011.

We will ensure opposition to PFI is at the centre of our Holyrood 2026 election campaign. Readers will recall that Dr Jean Turner won a seat at Holyrood in 2003 by opposing Labour’s NHS cuts in her local area. We too aim to enlist public support by building the broadest possible coalition in opposition to Labour’s PFI plans north of the border.