£37m paid to private hospitals
Private hospitals were given nearly £37million in taxpayers’ cash to help the NHS during the pandemic.
New documents have revealed the eye-watering cost – more than a year after the deals were struck.
Critics have said authorities have broken rules over delays to publishing the Covid agreements.
Glasgow’s Nuffield hospital and BMI Ross Hall as well as Spire’s Murrayfield hospital in Edinburgh were paid £36.7million in contracts.
The agreements, from last April, saw the NHS take over private hospitals as a contingency to the pandemic swamping the NHS.
But campaigners have questioned the benefit of the deals when the £43million NHS Louisa Jordan was lying empty at the same time.
It is not known what treatments were carried out by the private firms.
Tom Waterson, of trade union Unison, said: “If there has been one winner in the pandemic, it’s been private companies making a fast buck. It would have been better if the hospitals had been temporarily taken over using emergency powers and not caught in these deals.”
Spire Healthcare said it had given “vital care to patients in urgent need who otherwise would not have been seen and treated”. It added: “Overall, this was delivered at cost across different parts of the UK and no profit was made by Spire.”
An NHS National Services Scotland spokesman said “a small number” of private firms had provided emergency capacity. He added: “This secured additional capacity and guaranteed access to private healthcare facilities during a critical stage of the pandemic. All awards fully complied with the Public Contracts (Scotland) Regulations 2015.”