SNP ministers have been accused of “startling hypocrisy” over the use of private hospitals to cut waiting lists despite Nicola Sturgeon’s vow to push them to “the margins” of the NHS.
The Scottish Tories released figures showing there had been an average of around 6000 NHS-funded operations a year in the independent sector since the SNP came to power.
In a written parliamentary answer to Tory MSP Miles Briggs, Health Secretary Jeanne Freeman revealed there had been 68,175 such operations between 2007 and 2018.
When Ms Sturgeon was health secretary in 2010, she told MSPs the government would use private hospitals “only at the margins when NHS boards need them for strategic reasons”.
The figures coincided with Ms Freeman announcing £32m to help reduce waiting times.
The Tories said waiting times could be cut further if the Scottish Government ramped up its use of private providers, rather than tying itself in ideological knots over them.
Mr Briggs said a recent drop in private hospital use had been associated with growing waiting times, and the SNP should turn to the sector of benefit patients suffering in pain.
It recently emerged a record 31.6 of patients were treated after the 12-week legal deadline for inpatient and day cases at the start of 2019.
READ MORE: Nicola Sturgeon insists NHS waiting time plan 'not failing' despite record problems
Mr Briggs said: “These figures show that the independent sector has been propping up the SNP’s health service for years.
“That makes the SNP’s position on the matter totally insincere and illogical – the nationalists are guilty of startling hypocrisy.
“It is absolutely right that the independent sector is used to help patients access timely treatment, but the SNP cannot pretend otherwise.
“Waiting times are longer than ever under this SNP administration, and the SNP must do everything possible to reduce them.
“The sad fact is that even with the independent sector bailing them out the SNP’s mismanagement of the health service is causing patients to suffer unnecessarily.
“The SNP must drop their ideological blinkers and run a health service fit for a modern Scotland.”
Ms Freeman said the £32m she was announcing was in addition to £70m from April, taking the amount spent on the government’s Waiting Time Improvement plan this year to £102m.
The investment will help deliver additional clinics and extra staff. It will also facilitate an increase in cataract procedures, hip and knee replacements and general surgery.
The money is part of a bigger £850m package to bring down waiting times over three years.
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Construction has also started on a £15m expansion of the ophthalmology unit at the Golden Jubilee Hospital in Glasgow and NHS Highland is expected to start work on the £36m North of Scotland Elective Centre by the end of 2019.
Visiting the Queen Margaret Hospital in Dunfermline, where NHS Fife is using innovative tests for endoscopy patients and a new theatre for speedier cataract operations, Ms Freeman said: “It is good to see that funding is making a tangible difference in hospitals such as the Queen Margaret and I am determined that should be the case across Scotland.
“Our Waiting Times Improvement Plan will also see the creation of new elective and diagnostic centres, leading to quicker appointments in planned surgery, taking pressure off emergency treatment.
“We will continue to ensure the additional funding delivers the substantial and sustainable improvements needed.”
Responding to the Tory criticisms, a spokesperson for Mr Freeman said: “This is desperate stuff from a Scottish Tory party whose tax plans would slash more than half a billion pounds from money available for Scotland’s NHS.
“The reality is the 68,000 figure is a small fraction of the 12 million procedures carried out by NHS Scotland over the same period.
“And the use of the independent sector relates to just 0.6% of our total health spending – compared to 7.3% in Tory-run England, where private sector spending has increased to £9.2 billion in the last year alone.”
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