First Minister Eluned Morgan says Welsh NHS is 'ready to use the private sector'

The First Minister has said that she is “ready to use the private sector” in the NHS in Wales if it helps cut waiting lists.

Eluned Morgan’s comments come on the day that the Labour Welsh and UK Governments announced at their party’s annual conference in Liverpool that they would work together to improve the NHS on both sides of the border.

Although there is some limited use of the private sector in the health service in Wales, successive Welsh Labour governments have generally been vocally opposed to it, going as far as promising in the 2011 manifesto to “eliminate the use of private sector hospitals in Wales.”

The UK Health Secretary, Wes Streeting, has said that he’s willing to use the private sector in a “pragmatic” way to bring down waiting lists in England.

And when I asked Keir Starmer about the matter before the conference, he told me that “The principle that the NHS is a publicly funded service free at the point of use is absolutely key to me and we’re not going to alter that.

“But on occasions using the private sector to get down waiting lists? Yes, that's been going on a long time. We will do that to get waiting lists down.”

In Liverpool, I asked Eluned Morgan if she wanted to eradicate the use of the private sector in healthcare.

She said that “ In an ideal world of course we do. But I tell you what, if you're suffering waiting for a hip replacement, you want that pain to go as fast as possible, so long as you are not paying for it and the NHS is paying for it.

“The most important thing for me is to answer the calls of those people who are waiting in pain. And frankly, I am ready to use the private sector if that helps to speed up the process.”

“If for the short term, to alleviate the pressure, we need to use the private sector, yeah, I'm up for that.”

Her comments have been criticised by opponents. A Plaid Cymru spokesperson said that "Labour in Wales have overseen the managed decline of our NHS over the last 25 years - their own mismanagement has led to the highest waiting times on record. Continuing to throw money at the problem without getting to the root cause of issues will not fix it.

"This is a government out of touch and out of ideas, having to resort to Wes Streeting's playbook. It's clear that only Plaid Cymru has the ideas to tackle the challenges facing the NHS to ensure its future."

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