Scottish Labour's NHS plan 'has created two-tier system in England'
A study by Allyson Pollock, a clinical professor of public health, found that Labour's policy of using private services to provide NHS healthcare in England has resulted in a two-tier system, and warned that similar plans for Scotland's NHS could create the same divide. The research compared NHS elective hip and knee replacement surgery in England and Scotland between 1997/98 and 2018/19.
Allyson Pollock, a clinical professor of public health at Newcastle University, has warned that Scottish Labour's plans for Scotland's NHS risk creating a two-tier system. The warning follows a study comparing NHS elective hip and knee replacement surgery in England and Scotland between 1997/98 and 2018/19. The research found that England's increasing use of private providers led to a seven-fold increase in private providers with NHS contracts, while NHS capacity shrank. In contrast, Scotland expanded in-house NHS capacity. The study concluded that contracting out NHS-funded elective surgery to the private sector in England is associated with the creation of a two-tier system within the NHS. Inequality worsened more rapidly in England than in Scotland, with the difference in provision for richer and poorer people increasing at two-and-a-half times the rate in England. Scottish Labour's manifesto proposes using 'all available capacity no matter where it is' to drive down waiting lists, including purchasing capacity from the independent sector.
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