Public-private pain: buying back Sydney’s embattled Northern Beaches hospital faces uncertain prognosis

Untangling the Northern Beaches hospital’s private components from its public ones and settling the terms of the government’s buyback are proving difficult. Photograph: Dan Himbrechts/AAP

Just before the New South Wales parliament rose for the winter break, an unusual piece of legislation passed through both chambers late in the evening. It aimed to strengthen the arm of the Minns government in its negotiations to return the Northern Beaches hospital (NBH) to public ownership by threatening changes to the terms of the contract with its private partner, Healthscope.

NBH is the only public-private partnership (PPP) in NSW where public hospital services, including emergency care, are delivered by the private sector. The Labor government, a staunch critic of PPPs, has vowed it would not enter any such deals in the future. To underscore its stance, it has now passed legislation banning PPPs to deliver acute care.