Privatisation of NHS Services

Debate between Mike Hill and Thelma Walker

Monday 23rd April 2018 Westminster Hall

[Mike Hill (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered e-petition 205106 relating to the privatisation of NHS services.

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Graham. I pay tribute to a young constituent of mine, Connor McDade, whose father, John, is a friend and a former work colleague. Connor was run over in Newcastle last weekend, but despite the most excellent care provided by NHS staff in the critical care unit at the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle, his life support was switched off yesterday. On 14 May, he would have been 22. He passed in the early hours of this morning. The standard of care delivered by staff at the RVI was second to none, so it is fitting that I pay tribute to them and all hard-working NHS staff at the beginning of my speech.

Privatisation in the NHS is not new. When the NHS was founded in 1948, agreements had to be thrashed out with GPs, doctors and consultants to allow private practice to continue and sit alongside the new national health service. Private healthcare insurance has been around for longer than the NHS. The British United Provident Association—BUPA—was founded in 1947, and it currently has about 15.5 million health insurance customers and 14.5 million people in its private clinics and hospitals.

The NHS itself has always had a private treatment offer, although between 1974 and 1976, Barbara Castle, the Labour Secretary of State for Social Services, campaigned to abolish pay beds in the NHS. That was achieved after her tenure in 1977, but the Tories repealed it three years later in the Health Services Act 1980. On abolishing pay beds and separating out private and NHS facilities, Mrs Castle said:

“The existence of pay beds, with the opportunity it gives to a few senior doctors to make private gain and the opportunity it gives to patients with money to jump the queue, is seen as a bitter affront to those thousands of other staff who are dedicated to the principle of a free Health Service.”—[Official Report, 21 November 1975; Vol. 901, c. 355.]

Tens of thousands of health workers, citizens and patients would echo that opinion today. It is also the opinion of the British Medical Association, which believes that the NHS should always be free at the point of use and has campaigned for many years to halt the spread of privatisation. Its focus is not just on private practice, but on private provision—the privatisation of services, commissioning and procurement.

It is worth noting that, on private practice or healthcare provision, an update to the BMA’s 2016 report entitled “Privatisation and independent sector provision in the NHS” shows that in recent years, the number of NHS patients treated in private hospitals has increased substantially. In 2015-16 alone there were 557,200 admissions—an increase of 8%—and in the same period 5% of NHS-funded elective surgical admissions were to independent sector facilities.

[Thelma Walker (Colne Valley) (Lab)]

We are witnessing the fundamental dismantling of the NHS and creeping privatisation, which is undermining its dedicated, hard-working staff. Does my hon. Friend agree that we need to halt all privatisation and legislate against the selling-off of our world-renowned health service?

[Mike Hill]

As a member of the Petitions Committee, I am independent; as a Labour MP, I agree. I will come to that point later.

Private practice is only one aspect of the worrying trend towards the increased privatisation of NHS services. As the BMA points out, the recent legal action that Virgin Care brought against several clinical commissioning groups should serve as a stark reminder of what can happen when the relationship between the NHS and the private sector sours.