LABOUR are putting Scotland's NHS at risk, the SNP have said, after a report warned of 229,000 excess deaths under a US-UK medicines deal.
The NHS in England will have to divert £45 billion from essential services to help pay for new medicines under the terms of the deal agreed between the UK Government and Donald Trump’s US administration last December.
Ministers have been accused of caving in to US demands to spend billions of pounds a year extra on drugs supplied to the NHS following pressure from the US president.
According to the British Medical Journal, £45bn will be diverted from health services by 2036 to pay for 25% more new medicines under the trade deal, which will have an adverse effect on the nation’s public health.
Analysis of the funding cuts found it could cause around 229,000 in excess deaths by 2036 – a larger avoidable death toll than the Covid pandemic between March 2020 and June 2022.
The SNP had previously warned against the deal which they said would "hammer Scotland" as part of a Labour Party plot to "lure pharmaceutical investment to the south of England".
SNP MSP Michelle Campbell said Labour ministers have "serious questions to answer".
"This is an absolutely damning report – Westminster’s capitulation to the demands of the White House and US big pharma could cost the lives of over 200,000 people in England alone. That is absolutely devastating," she said.
“Anyone can see that agreeing to pay 25% more for vital medicines, costing the NHS £45bn, is a shocking deal. Labour ministers have serious questions to answer.
“The Labour Party used sick Scots as a bargaining chip to lure big pharma to the south of England and it’s Scotland’s NHS that will pay the price – Westminster has put Scotland’s NHS at risk.
“We know Nigel Farage would sell off our NHS in heartbeat, but it seems the Labour Party have beat him to it – the question now is will Andy Burnham stand by this disaster of a deal?"
The report showed that most of the preventable deaths would be among people with heart, respiratory, and gastrointestinal disease or cancer, as first reported by The Guardian.
Ciarán Devane, the chief executive of the NHS Alliance, which represents the healthcare system in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, hit out at the UK Government following the findings, saying they raise “serious questions” over whether the trade deal represented value for patients or for the NHS.
Ministers previously argued that the deal was good because it would let British-made drugs sold to the US avoid tariffs of up to 100% after Trump threatened to impose tariffs.
The Green’s leader in England and Wales, Zack Polanski, said the findings should indicate the end of the “special relationship” between the UK and the US.
