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Friday, 19 April 2024

Saturday, 01 July 2006 11:12

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Plans to open Scotland's first private sector treatment centre goes ahead

Scottish Ministers yesterday pushed ahead with plans to open Scotland's first private sector treatment centre as concerns were raised about creeping privatisation of the English NHS.

Amicus Healthcare has been named as the preferred bidder to run the Scottish Regional Treatment Centre at Stracathro Hospital in Angus. The centre, which will cost £5 million annually during the three-year contract, will be run by Amicus, but will carry out minor surgery on NHS patients from Tayside, Fife and Grampian.

The Scottish Executive said there were no plans to involve the private sector in primary care commissioning north of the Border. But a spokesman added: "We are determined to provide substantial additional capacity in the NHS and increase the use of the private sector to bring down long waits."

A British Medical Association (BMA) Scotland spokeswoman said: "Diverting investment from the NHS to the private sector will do little to solve the problems of the NHS in the long term, indeed we have already seen the destabilising effect in England.

"While the private sector may be a short-term fix to reduce waiting times, it could be detrimental to the NHS, leading to ward or department closures from workload reduction”.

Stewart Maxwell, the SNP's deputy health spokesman, said: "Instead of shifting more resources into the private sector we should be supporting the NHS ... to make the service more responsive to patients”.

Nanette Milne, the Tory health spokeswoman, said she did not object to some use of the private sector to speed up treatment for patients.