Fri 1 May 2020, 05:45 AM | Posted by editor
LETTER from Tom Smith, Newport West LP member
Investigation of the deal between the government and private health care has shown itself to be a bailout for the latter. The idea NHS use of private hospitals was ‘non-profit‘ is a farce.
The NHS would gain, we were told, 10,000 nurses and 8,000 beds. True, but the Centre for Health and Public Interest (CHPI) has done an investigation which shows that not only were private hospitals facing a crisis, that they used the deal as a method of extracting profits. “The widespread uncertainty and disruption caused by the coronavirus was already having a big effect on the finances of private hospitals. Many have cancelled operations for at-risk groups, travel restrictions are limiting the supply of lucrative overseas patients and NHS-funded operations were at risk of temporary suspensions”
Of course, a deep recession reduces the number of self-paying patients and impacts on the business of private insurance. However, private hospitals still have pay full rent for their buildings and repay debts. The ten largest private hospitals owed over £2.6bn. Equally, there are rents paid and management fees owed to those same corporate groups who lent them money. Private hospitals would have had to seek rent and interest holidays as other firms have done.
Deal will line the pockets of private landlords
In short, by agreeing to pay operating costs, overheads, use of assets, rent and interest, this government has bailed out a failing industry. The deal will line the pockets of private landlords and lenders to the hospitals where the investments were at risk for shareholders.
This opens the way for hidden profits to be moved to lower tax locations. It would be astonishing for any accounting firm independent of government managed to dig out this information.
So private hospitals gain, not only survival over the lifetime of the pandemic, but pick up fat profits from the backlog of cases mounting up within the NHS who are fighting the disease. It also gains the kudos of ‘playing its part’ in the battle, strengthening the campaign to privatise one of finest institutions in the world.
