Scottish Labour's candidate in the party's top target seat is under pressure after it emerged that he worked for the consultancy which helped design the Tory-led Government's NHS reforms in England.

Dr Amanjit Jhund was until recently an adviser for McKinsey and Co, which has profited from coalition legislation to increase private sector involvement in the health service.

A source close to the doctor said he stopped working for the firm at an undefined point "earlier this year".

Jhund, who is trying to win East Dunbartonshire from Liberal Democrat Minister Jo Swinson, has also been criticised over footage in which he told an Eton audience that the "nice parts" of Glasgow "tend to be very well hidden."

Under the coalition's Health and Social Care Act, billions of NHS funds in England were transferred to new "clinical commissioning groups" to spend.

The reforms encouraged greater use of the private sector in delivering NHS services by opening up chunks of the budget to competition.

However, newspaper investigations have revealed the role of global consultancy giant McKinsey in the reforms, both during the passage of the legislation as well as its implementation.

It was revealed that some of the Bill's proposals were drawn up by McKinsey and senior company figures attended meetings of the 'Extraordinary NHS Management Board' set up to push through the changes.

McKinsey was also hired to teach GPs how to manage the budgets they would be controlling and is one of many firms that has benefited from the doubling of health spending on consultants, which reached £640m in 2014.

When McKinsey's role in the legislation was revealed, Labour's shadow health secretary Andy Burnham said:

"The Government needs to tell us how much McKinsey has earned in total from this re-organisation, whether Ministers have followed proper processes in awarding contracts and whether any inside knowledge of policy has been used for commercial gain."

He later said consultants had had a "field day" from the NHS restructuring and said the increased spending on advisers was "indefensible".

Burnham has promised that a Labour Government will repeal the Act.

However, Dr Jhund, who is trying to overturn a LibDem majority of 2,184, is listed as a "specialist" for McKinsey in London on his social media biography.

It states that he took up the position in May 2013, after being an NHS doctor for 8 years.

It is understood he stopped working for the company at some point in 2015.

His work for McKinsey is not mentioned on his Labour campaigning website.

Instead, he describes himself as a "hospital transformation consultant" who is "helping to improve the standards of care provided to patients up and down the country".

Born in Glasgow, Dr Jhund studied hepatology at Harvard Medical School and has run his own businesses.

When he stood for Labour in Windsor in 2010, he said of his home city: "I grew up in a nice part of Glasgow myself. For many of you out there that don't know Glasgow very well, I can assure you there are actually some nice parts, although they tend to be very well hidden."

He told the same audience he had been a Conservative as a young boy and was raised in a Tory-supporting household.

However, he said his world view had changed when he turned 16 and was proud of the improvements the last Labour Government made to his home city.

John Nicolson , the SNP candidate in East Dunbartonshire, said: "Labour's decision to put forward a candidate who worked for the company that helped draw up the privatisation agenda that has undermined the NHS in England beggars belief.

"It reeks of hypocrisy and raises real questions as to why anyone should trust Labour when it comes to the NHS."

He added: ''Mr Jhund's snobbish comments about Glasgow to Eton pupils are way off the mark - Jim Murphy should disown them immediately."

A spokesperson for Swinson said: "Labour are all over the place on the NHS. They can't be trusted to run the economy in a way which would protect our health service."

A Scottish Labour spokesperson said:

"Dr Jhund does not work for McKinsey. He is proud to have grown up in Glasgow and is looking forward to helping kick out the Tories in May by beating Jo Swinson in East Dunbartonshire."