Unhealthy PFI Scandal of poverty

What’s happening to the National Health Service? In 1947 hospitals paid no charge on their land, buildings or assets. If money was needed to rebuild or upgrade, it came out of capital costs from central government. Put simply, our tax money paid for hospitals, which we, the public, then owned.

Since 1997 hospital buildings and assets have been constructed wholly or partly with private finance. So the new infirmary in Edinburgh, as well as many other hospitals both in England and Scotland, is built on land not owned by Lothian Health Trust, but by a PFI (Private Finance Initiative). Trusts then have to pay back the money borrowed.

Hospitals are struggling to meet their PFI debts. For example, South London Healthcare Trust has recently been put into administration, unable to pay this debt.

Today, the NHS is paying £14.4 billion to private firms as repayments on their PFI debts. In some trusts the repayments account for one-fifth of their budgets.

We, the public, are paying these huge sums out of our taxes to private firms for no good reason. This money, which is a major reason why the NHS is struggling today, would be better spent on patient care.

We, the public, are also paying billions of our money to private firms for contracts within the NHS to the point where NHS is now simply a logo for a funding stream that pays over our money to private companies.

Here in Scotland, in our devolved NHS, some GP practices

are now run by companies.

Public money needs to come back to funding public services, not bankrolling billionaires.

ANNE WIMBERLEY Belmont Road, Edinburgh Amidst all the hype and shambles from the Westminster government regarding Brexit, a United Nations report reveals the shameful level of poverty in the United Kingdom as a result of UK government policies on welfare while giving tax breaks to the rich.

This report was very timely, as it coincided with the appointment of new Work and Pensions Secretary Amber Rudd.

The UN report branded the policies of her Conservative government in Westminster as punitive, mean-spirited and callous and should be an essential read for Ms Rudd.

The report suggests that UK government ministers are in denial of the scale of poverty which is being inflicted on the needy and vulnerable, something that has been very evikong’s

dent during the roll-out of Universal Credits, yet the roll-out continues.

Amber Rudd could hit the ground running by demanding an immediate halt to the continued roll-out of Universal Credits, becoming a real voice in the government for those this UN report highlights who are suffering as a direct result of her government’s welfare policies.

CATRIONA C CLARK Hawthorn Dr, Banknock, Falkirk