Privatisation of NHS Services

George Howarth Excerpts

Monday 23rd April 2018 Westminster Hall

[Mike Hill]

I am glad that my hon. Friend mentioned such issues, and dementia in particular—mental health care needs to be looked at for investment.

[Mr George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)]

Will my hon. Friend give way? I know he has just said, “One more time”, but perhaps he will make it two.

[Mike Hill]

I am on my last two paragraphs, but I will give way to my right hon. Friend.

[Mr Howarth]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. He has made a powerful case for how it is wrong in principle to privatise the national health service, and he has alluded to comparisons with the social care sector. Is not one of the major risks the fact that private sector provision sometimes fails—the business fails—so there is a complete and, in the short term, irreplaceable loss of capacity in the healthcare categories catered for by such a company?

[Mike Hill]

I cannot disagree with such a well made point.

The impact of austerity has been a double-edged sword, according to the union Unison. On one hand, less money can be made from the NHS, so some firms have shrunk away. On the other hand, the NHS has opted increasingly for short-term fixes as it struggles with insufficient funding, and that has created opportunities for the private sector. For example, the Carter review includes the threat that hospitals that cannot make sufficient savings in their support services or pathology functions might have to use outsourcing instead. Most recently, the development of wholly owned subsidiary companies has brought a whole new set of fears for the NHS, and for health staff in particular.

The old fears from the 1980s and 1990s are beginning to resurface. When we add social care into the mix, those fears multiply. The NHS is one of our proudest achievements, and we need to protect it, not privatise it. To do so, we need to revoke section 75 of the Health and Social Care Act.