Labour MPs are absolutely right to reject Wes Streeting’s plan to use private capital to build neighbourhood health centres (Labour MPs urge Reeves to drop private finance plans for NHS buildings, 21 November). Like a family using a payday loan to buy their home, yes, we’d end up with a building, but we’ll have to sacrifice meals to keep up with the payments.
Given Rachel Reeves’s lack of fiscal wiggle room, no one believes that the NHS’s budget will increase year-on-year to keep pace with the combined financial impact of inflation, the growing health needs of our ageing population and possible rising drug prices. So adding a new private finance debt burden to this cocktail will only result in trusts skimping on the only one of those things they have control over: patient care.
