Signs of privatisation in the Scottish NHS

Your Letters

December 19 2006

WE are dismayed by the process through which the Scottish NHS is being opened to private companies, and that there appears to be a strong political drive to use private providers.
The NHS in Scotland has traditionally chosen a more communitarian approach to healthcare provision than its English counterpart, but there is now increasing evidence of a growing reliance upon the private sector.
Evidence for this includes the Private Finance Initiative for the building of facilities, the use of private providers to manage projects designed to help the poorest of our society (Refer2Us in NHS Lanarkshire), the outsourcing of core NHS business (as at Strathcathro) and now Lanarkshire's decision to tender GP services out to private companies.
Mr Kerr, the Health Minister, tells us that this tendering of GP services is not a new departure, but simply the board using the GMS contract as laid down in 2002. If this is so, why have there been no similar episodes over the past four years? Decisions over the involvement and influence of the private sector in our NHS are not being made in a transparent manner.
There appears to be little democratic oversight of these dramatic changes to the NHS. We believe that the benefits and harms of large private companies such as Serco Health investing in both hospital PFIs (Wishaw General Hospital) and GP practices (Harthill) must be subjected to public scrutiny.
We call upon Scottish ministers to instruct health boards to halt the ongoing process of creating a health market so that debate can be held. Furthermore, we seek assurances that NHS boards will make their decisions in a transparent manner.
Phil Hanlon, Professor of Public Health, Glasgow University; Dr Jean Turner, MSP; Dr Robert Cumming, Scottish Health Campaigns Network; Aileen Brown, Greenrigg Community Council; Dr George Venters, Retired Consultant in Public Health; Dr Gerry McCartney, Dr John O'Dowd, Dr Joy Tomlinson, Dr Finn Romanes (all Specialist Registrars in Public Health); Dr Katherine Teale, Anaesthetist; Dr Lorna Ventry, GP; Dr Lesley Morrison, GP; Dr Chris Johnstone, GP; Dr Geraldine O'Dowd, Pathologist; Malcolm Allan, Retired Pharmacist; Julie McAnulty.
 
I can understand our Health Minister being wary about crossing swords with ill-informed critics of his views on PFI. Given the knowledge of many of your recent correspondents together with their views on Mr Kerr's approach to funding large projects, I anticipate with interest the publication of the response you will shortly receive from Mr Kerr.
John A Maxwell, 10 Beechwood Court, Bearsden.

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