Privatisation of NHS Services
Debate between Kevin Hollinrake and Stephen Pound(6 years, 7 months ago)
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Kevin Hollinrake
As I said, there are concerns. I have concerns: some of my constituents have difficulties. The overall quantum of healthcare funding—I will return to this at the end of my remarks—is putting pressure particularly on rural areas that I represent. We need to tackle a number of different issues. With regard to the future of healthcare funding, my perspective is similar to that of my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham): we should be working on a cross-party basis to deliver the solutions.
In terms of private or public, the public are absolutely behind the point that they have no preference. A greater number of people express no preference, in terms of a private sector or public sector provider, as to who provides their healthcare. Yes, of course the public are massively in favour—89% are in favour—of a taxpayer-funded healthcare system, but on the question whether the care should be delivered by private or public providers, it is a very different picture.
Stephen Pound
The hon. Gentleman has been extremely generous in giving way. I am reluctant to wander too far down memory lane, but when the NHS and I were born at the same time, in July 1948—[Laughter.] Two great institutions, both in need of considerable support! The NHS was born out of compromise. I spent 10 years working in the Middlesex Hospital. We had a private patients wing. The entire GP facility within the NHS has been private. GPs have always been self-employed. There has been compromise. The issue is not the fact that there is a compromise and private practice within the NHS, but the fact that there is a creeping expansion of privatisation, which my constituents and, I would suggest, those of every right hon. and hon. Member here feel is corrosive to the heart of the NHS. Yes, there is privatisation within the NHS, but we have to stop it. We must not expand it. We must return to core principles.
Kevin Hollinrake
It is only corrosive if it is not in the patient’s interest. There are clear commissioning rules that it must be in the patient’s interest for this commissioning to take place. The key is what is right for the patient. I do not doubt that the hon. Gentleman may be right that some of the commissioning is wrong, but whether it is private or public should not be the overriding principle; it should be what is right for the patient.