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 Home News General
British expert warns against public private partnerships in health09 March 2005The case against handing over public health services to the private sector has been strengthened with a British expert strongly warning against them. Professor Jean Shaoul said the British experience showed that the Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) ended up costing taxpayers more and delivered vastly inferior services to the public. "Don't touch PPPs with surgical gloves," she said during an Australian visit this week. Professor Shaoul, who is the professor of accounting and finance at Manchester University in England said that the payments to the private sector ended up much higher than expected in many cases. In addition the hosptials built by as PPPs were 30 percent smaller because it cost more for the private sector to raise finance than it did for the government. As an example of the problems that can occur she said the private operators of the 800 bed South Manchester University Hospital refused to move the body of a mental health patient who had died of natural causes because they claimed they were only contracted to care for patients not bodies. She also re-iterated the concerns raised by the British trade union Unison about poor cleaning standards in hospitals run by the private sector. The rise of superbugs - infections that were resistant to antibiotics - is being blamed on the decline in cleaning standards. Both the NSW and Victorian governments are looking at PPPs as a way to finance the redevelopment of public health facilities. The HSU opposes this because of the widespread evidence, such as in Britain, that it leads to a drop in standards and ends up costing the government more than if it had done the work itself. |
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© 2003 Health Services Union (HSU) |
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