Privatisation of Hackney Healthcare

Recent changes to the NHS have been designed to give patients more choice. The Government has introduced Alternative Providers of Medical Services (APMS), which allows Primary Care Trusts to contract out the services they provide to a variety of health care providers – including private companies. Another change is allowing patients to choose which GP they see instead of the current system where you must attend the surgery nearest your home.

I am concerned that allowing private companies to run NHS services will have a negative impact on the standard of care we receive. I am in no doubt that the NHS has been vastly improved over the last 12 years. I had my son in the Homerton Hospital in 1991. The doctors and nurses were lovely, but there was no doubt they were under pressure. Under a Labour government the buildings and the facilities at the Homerton have been improved out of all recognition. And it has an excellent record on issues like MRSA. Nationally we now have 89,000 more nurses, 44,000 more doctors and 100 new hospitals. But I am deeply concerned by the current trend towards allowing private companies to make a profit from providing health services. Profit-making companies may well find ways to perform a service more cheaply but the money saved does not get pumped back into the NHS to further improve services. Instead it goes straight into the pockets of the shareholders. And it is important to ask how private companies do things for less money. Very often it involves cutting corners – with staff wages and pensions, with substandard practice buildings or with the standard and variety of services.

Currently two big healthcare centres are planned for Hackney (the new polyclinic health centres) but there is a chance they will be contracted out to private companies. I have written to the Department of Health explaining my concerns over these plans and will be meeting with the Hackney and City Primary Care Trust. I am determined that healthcare in Hackney will not suffer.