SCOTLAND’s largest NHS board spent more than £20 million on private health care last year.
While the overall amount boards spent using private and independent health care providers fell to £72m in 2016/17, the bill for Greater Glasgow and Clyde hit £20.4m.
Both NHS Lanarkshire and NHS Lothian spent more than £9m, while at NHS Tayside the costs amounted to over £8.8m, figures from the Scottish Government showed.
NHS Shetland had the lowest spending on private health care at £153,000.
The spending details were revealed by Health Secretary Shona Robison in response to a parliamentary question from the Scottish Conservatives.
Ms Robison said: “NHS territorial boards continue to make limited use of the independent and private sector for health care services. Total spend decreased from £78.5m in 2015/16 to £72m in 2016/17.”
In government the SNP has been critical of the use of private companies in the NHS.
Tory health spokesman Miles Briggs said: “Listening to the SNP you would think private healthcare was an evil that isn’t welcome in Scotland.
“Yet now we see it spends millions every month using it to help out the NHS.”
Mr Briggs said the Conservatives believed that independent providers could play a “vital role in reducing waiting lists, and helping out an increasingly under-strain NHS”.
He added: “It’s time the SNP admitted that, rather than reverting to its dogmatic playbook.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel