Rapid growth of private healthcare reveals how SNP are running NHS into the ground
Growing numbers of people are choosing to pay for medical treatment rather than spend weeks, months or years in pain
According to new figures, Scotland has a record number of consultants working in private healthcare. After a rise of nearly 10 per cent in two years, there are now a total of 523. Meanwhile, the British Medical Association Scotland says some 1,165 consultants posts in the NHS are vacant.
What this means for patients is obvious and they have been voting with their feet – and their wallets – with private hospital admissions hitting record levels and growing at a faster rate in Scotland than the rest of the UK.
The three most common reasons for private health treatment were cataracts, hip replacements and upper gastro-intestinal endoscopy. Why would patients pay for treatment they could get for free on the NHS? Clearly, the main reason for many will be frustration and despair over the long waits for treatment.
A service of last resort
That people in pain are waiting for weeks, months or even years for some forms of NHS treatment is a scandal, and no one should blame those who can afford it for going private. There is nothing wrong with private healthcare.
Instead, the blame should be directed squarely at the SNP government. If the current trend continues, the NHS will eventually be reduced to little more than a service of last resort for the poorest, with private treatment becoming the norm. This is the clear direction of travel in supposedly 'progressive' Scotland.
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Successive SNP Health Secretaries have promised decisive action yet the situation just keeps getting worse. Despite the crisis, the nationalists remain wedded to policies such as free prescriptions for all, that may be popular on the doorstep, but which come at a cost.
If that cost is the slow but steady decline of the NHS, we will reach a situation where almost everyone pays for their prescriptions.
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Restoring the NHS to its former glory
About 95 per cent of prescriptions in England are free, but the small charge levied for the remainder raises substantial amounts of money. A similar system in Scotland could help the health service recover its former glory.
The NHS was once rated as the best healthcare system in the world. Along with unacceptably long waiting lists, the growth of private healthcare is one of the clearest signals that it is falling apart.
The SNP, and other parties, need to start recognising that saving the NHS is a priority that may well require some unpopular choices to be made – but better that than the alternative.
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