News from Sheffield Labour

Increasing private patient income will mean worse NHS services for Sheffield people

Sheffield South East Labour MP, Clive Betts, has expressed considerable surprise that the Medical Director of Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has called for Sheffield hospitals to be allowed to raise up to 49% of their income from private patients.

Professor Mike Richmond, Medical Director, Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, was one of the signatories to a letter to The Times last week.

Clive Betts said: “I think Professor Richmond is totally out of step with Sheffield people. They are overwhelmingly concerned about the Government’s proposals for the NHS. They simply don’t trust David Cameron and Nick Clegg with our health services. And their view is shared by just about every professional body – including all the Royal Colleges of doctors, nurses and supplementary professions.

Already, nationally and locally:

* the median waiting-time for treatment is higher now than in 2009/10;

* the number of people waiting more than 18 months for treatment has increased by 43% in the last year; and

* twice as many people are now waiting more than 6 weeks for diagnostic tests – including for cancer and heart disease – as were waiting when David Cameron came to power.”

Clive Betts called on Professor Richmond to spell out precisely where the spare capacity was in Sheffield hospitals – specialism by specialism.

Clive Betts said; “Unless there is spare capacity and no-one on the waiting-list for either out-patient or in-patient treatment in each specialism, increasing private patient income can only be achieved at the expense of deteriorating NHS services for Sheffield people.”

Clive Betts continued; “Sheffield people want the Government to drop the Health Bill. They are vehemently opposed to this creeping privatisation of the NHS.

“David Cameron promised ‘no top-down re-organisation’, but that is what he seems determined to implement. He has told Primary Care Trusts to set aside 2% of their budgets next year just to pay for re-organisation. In Sheffield, that’s £38m that should be spent on health, not on bureaucracy.”

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