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CONTROVERSIAL plans to set up four private sector treatment centres in Yorkshire have been abandoned. Heavyweight opposition from NHS chiefs and MPs has scuppered proposals to send NHS patients for privately-provided treatment rather than in NHS hospitals.
Hospitals bosses feared millions of pounds could be lost from NHS services, leading to cuts in care under the Government-backed plans to bring more competition in health services.
A £40m centre to treat heart patients from Rotherham and Barnsley and another £200m unit for general surgery in Sheffield were due to be built while a plastic surgery unit and multi-speciality treatment centre were scheduled for West Yorkshire carrying out work worth £45m a year.
"Instead of wasting public money on propping up new elective care centres, NHS money should be spent on replacing worn-out and threadbare hospitals.
"We couldn't understand how public money was being used to support capital investment in the private sector and yet the NHS remains starved of capital – it beggars belief."
"In the current climate of cutbacks, it is a welcome move," he said. "We were in a situation where we were in danger of NHS hospitals being cut down so much that we could have lost one because levels of activity would be reduced so far it wouldn't have been viable."
Some 21 centres have already opened and another 11 are due to open this year. One in York has already attracted criticism from Scarborough hospital chiefs fearful their own services could be hit.
Work would continue to maximise use of existing independent treatment centres for patients from South Yorkshire at Barlborough in North Derbyshire and for those from Bradford and Leeds at Eccleshill, Bradford.
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