Labour Leader Ed Miliband is today visiting the Lister Hospital in Stevenage, the scene of one of Labour's botched privatisation contracts and a prime illustration of Labour's lies and hypocrisy over NHS 'privatisation'.
Stephen McPartland, Member of Parliament for Stevenage, said, "The Lister Treatment Centre that Mr Miliband visited today was the infamous ClinicentaCarillion owned Surgicentre. I fought an 18 month campaign to kick those private contractors out and have the facility handed back to our local NHS to manage. The facility should have been in the NHS from day one and I still cannot understand why the Labour Government handed such complex surgical procedures over to a bunch of builders to manage. There are no excuses and Labour can never again be trusted with our local NHS.
"At least three people died, 8,500 patient records were lost and a whole host of serious failings that led to the Care Quality Commission beginning proceedings to suspend ClinicentraCarillion's licence to operate at the Surgicentre because of serious concerns for patient safety. They lost the confidence of the local community and the medical professionals, as GP's refused to refer their patients to the facility for treatment, because they were so concerned about the lost records, missed appointments and a range of serious failings found during the several Care Quality Commission inspections.
"I am proud of the NHS and proud of the staff who work in it every single day to try and improve our quality of life. We are benefiting from a £150 million redevelopment of our local hospital, which is transforming it into one of the most modern facilities in the UK. I am disgusted that Mr Miliband wants to weaponise our local NHS and never backed my campaign to bring this shameful private contract back to the NHS. The Labour Party should apologise to the local community for playing roulette with our local health service and politics with patient safety."
Secretary of State for Health, Rt Hon Jeremy Hunt MP, said, "Ed Miliband's scaremongering about privatisation has spectacularly backfired today: services at Stevenage were outsourced by Labour in a botched private sector deal this government has had to reverse. Rather than trying to use the NHS as a political weapon, he should be concentrating on learning the policy mistakes Labour got so badly wrong."
Click here if you would like to help Stephen make a difference
