THE new Health Secretary took more than £165,000 from donors linked with the private healthcare sector, it has emerged.
Yvette Cooper, who was appointed to her new role by Andy Burnham on Monday, was gifted a total of £165,439 from backers connected with the healthcare industry, according to the pressure group EveryDoctor which campaigns against NHS privatisation.
That figure, covering the two years from 2025, makes her the second biggest recipient of cash linked to the private healthcare industry after former health secretary Wes Streeting.
The money has come from two companies – OPD Group Ltd and MPM Connect Ltd – as well as the disgraced think tank Labour Together, which has rebranded as ThinkLabour.
The SNP have said voters have the right to know what these donors are “getting in return for hundreds of thousands of pounds of donations”.
ODP Group and MPM Connect both provide services to the NHS and are ultimately controlled by Peter Hearn, whose headhunting company Odgers Berndtson offers its services to the public and private health sectors.
Hearn’s company was responsible for the controversial appointment of Dido Harding as the head of the NHS Test and Trace scheme during the pandemic, which was panned as “the most wasteful and inept public spending programme of all time” by former Treasury chief Lord Macpherson.
Labour Together, which was forced to rebrand after it was found to have spied on journalists who reported on its dodgy finances, has gifted a total of £81,592 to Cooper since 2023, according to EveryDoctor.
The think tank is funded by Trevor Chinn, who is a senior advisor to the private equity firm CVC Capital Partners which has “investments in dozens of private healthcare companies based in the UK, Europe and Asia”, EveryDoctor said.
The campaign group added that Martin Taylor, who is another of Labour Together’s primary funders, runs the hedge fund Crake Asset Management which has interests in United Health and Elevance Health, two American private health companies.
SNP MSP Michelle Campbell, who is also a registered mental health nurse, said: “Yvette Cooper has serious questions to answer and it’s time she came clean – just what are private healthcare donors getting in return for hundreds of thousands of pounds of donations?
"Yvette Cooper and her predecessor, Wes Streeting, have absolutely coined it and no wonder – these donations have paid off for the private healthcare industry with the two highest recipients having been made Health Secretary.
“The Labour’s increasingly murky links with private healthcare firms raise serious questions over whether they would prioritise patients’ needs or private profits.
“The SNP in government is focused on improving our NHS and we will always protect its founding principles, ensuring that healthcare is provided based on medical need rather than the ability to pay – these donations call the Labour Party’s commitment to those principles into question.”
Streeting, who has now been appointed Defence Secretary, took even more from private health-linked donors, racking up a total of £224,575 from such sources between 2023 and 2025.
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “The NHS will always be free at the point of use under this government.
“We will build on the progress made in reducing waiting lists and improving access to care, while going further to ensure patients get the treatment they need faster.”
A Labour source added: "This is just the same recycled garbage the SNP are doing in order to distract from the disgraceful record on the health service. The hypocrisy of the the Scottish Government in Holyrood is shocking."
