NHS pays Optical Express to perform eye surgery in new privatisation row
HIGH street giant Optical Express has been handed a share of a multi-million-pound contract to carry out operations on behalf of the Scottish NHS.
In a move that highlights the growing privatisation of the country’s health service, some patients who require cataract surgery will be sent to the firm’s clinics instead of their local hospital.
Although the move is intended to help health boards deal with growing waiting lists, it flies in the face of repeated vows by First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and her government that the NHS in Scotland should be kept free of private sector involvement.
Last night, critics accused the Scottish Government of hypocrisy and warned increased use of commercial firms for core NHS functions risked putting profits before patients.
The Optical Express contract was revealed in official NHS documents, which also show a number of private hospitals have signed up
‘The sheer hypocrisy is breathtaking’
to perform millions of pounds worth of treatment.
As revealed in The Scottish Mail on Sunday last year, the NHS has created an approved list of private healthcare suppliers to which health boards can turn to carry out operations and other medical procedures for patients.
In January, the first six firms – Medinet, Synaptik, The Aberdeen Clinic, DMC Healthcare, 18 Week Support and Diagnostic World – were put on the list, to provide services including analysing scans, carrying out surgery and providing mobile operating theatres.
Now five more companies will also benefit from an estimated £30 million cash windfall – The Edinburgh Clinic private day-case hospital, Spire Healthcare-owned Murrayfield and Shawfair Park Hospitals in Edinburgh, and BMI Ross Hall Hospital and Nuffield Health Hospital in Glasgow.
Operations in all main areas, from orthopaedics and neurology to general surgery for adults and children, as well as exploratory investigations, will all now be available when required by NHS health boards for their patients.
The awarding of the contract comes only six months after the MoS revealed the growing use of private firms by the Scottish NHS, with almost £600 million over the past five years being paid to private agencies to plug workforce gaps.
Yet only last October, Ms Sturgeon promised her party conference: ‘As long as the SNP is in office, the NHS will always be in public hands – no privatisation of healthcare.’
And she pledged that at Westminster, her MPs would vote against any plans to privatise the NHS or cut health spending in England.
Meanwhile, Health Secretary Shona Robison insisted last year: ‘The Scottish Government is clear health boards should use the independent sector as little as possible – only to deal with short-term capacity issues to reduce NHS waiting times.’
But last night critics accused the Scottish Government of privatisation by stealth.
Scottish Conservative health spokesman Miles Briggs said: ‘The sheer hypocrisy from the SNP on this matter is breathtaking.
‘It never stops peddling stories about the NHS in England being privatised, yet all the while it’s dishing out contracts in Scotland in the very same way.’
Scottish Labour health spokesman Anas Sarwar said: ‘Rather than dishing out multi-millionpound contracts to private companies, the SNP should use the powers of the Scottish parliament to deliver real change and invest more in our health service. Our NHS should be a public service in public hands.’
Yesterday Optical Express, whose advertising slogans in the past have included ‘You get the best for less’, confirmed it had already begun operating on NHS cataract patients in Glasgow.
A spokeswoman for the company said NHS surgeries had taken place at its treatment clinic in the city centre, adding: ‘Optical Express utilises very experienced ophthalmic surgeons that work both in the NHS and in private practice.’
Along with the ten other private firms added to the NHS ‘purchasing’ database, Optical Express can be approached by desperate health boards struggling with a backlog of surgeries or staff shortages.
The contracts are awarded by NHS National Services Scotland, which insists private healthcare providers must demonstrate capability for surgical procedures for adults and children to be performed by ‘named, qualified and competent surgeons’.
Ironically, many of the firms profiting from Scotland’s healthcare crisis employ NHS doctors and nurses to work privately in NHS hospitals during their evenings and at weekends.
In October, the MoS reported the NHS in Scotland was advertising for private firms to carry out traditional core functions, while the bill for ‘locum’ doctors, nurses and administrative staff had more than doubled from £82 million in 2011-12 to £175 million in 2015-16.
On the controversial issues of contracting private firms, a Scottish Government spokesman said: ‘These are flexible five-year contracts that enable health boards to access extra independent-sector hospital capacity to manage shortterm capacity issues.
‘The value of these contracts equates to 0.09 per cent our of total annual health resource spending, which is increasing to more than £13 billion this year.’
‘We should invest more in our health service’ As long as the SNP is in office, the NHS will always be in public hands – no privatisation of healthcare’ NICOLA STURGEON
THE SNP is particularly shameless when it comes to using the NHS as a political football. During the independence referendum campaign, Scottish Nationalists insisted that only a Yes vote could save the health service from privatisation. Once that scare tactic failed, the SNP reverted to its default position, which is that any and all problems that exist within the NHS are the fault of the Westminster Government which, of course, exists only to hold Scotland back.
The Nationalists’ scaremongering over NHS privatisation is especially distasteful. They twist the perfectly legitimate use of private contractors in the NHS south of the Border to imply that ‘creeping’ privatisation will destroy the service, meaning it’s no longer free.
That is, of course, a distortion. The use of private contractors by the NHS is paid for from health service funds. These agreements have no impact on cost and do not threaten the principle of the NHS being free for all who need it.
The SNP has rather painted itself into a corner on the moral high ground over this issue. It condemns the use of private contractors by the health service in England while relying on identical agreements to keep the NHS in Scotland afloat.
In the latest example of the SNP’s nauseating hypocrisy over this issue, high street giant Optical Express has been handed a multi-million-pound contract to carry out operations on behalf of the Scottish NHS.
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon may paint herself as the great defender of the NHS against evil big business but the truth of the matter is that her Government remains enthusiastic about involving the private sector in our NHS.
There is nothing intrinsically wrong with handing NHS contracts to private companies. So long as value for money is obtained and the services provided are acceptable, it can be the perfect solution to a problem. Privately, Scottish Ministers must agree – why otherwise would they be handing out contracts?
In the topsy-turvy world of the SNP, it is wrong for the NHS in England to involve the private sector but fine for the service in Scotland to do the same.
Even by the standards of the Scottish Nationalists, this is surely a case of gross hypocrisy.