GLASGOW, August 26 (RIA Novosti), Mark Hirst – A No vote in next month’s Scottish independence referendum pose a risk to a range of free health services currently provided in the country, a National Health Service (NHS) surgeon told RIA Novosti Tuesday.
“In the long-term there is a significant risk to the NHS. It is not a risk right now, or next year but in ten years’ time when you look at the direction of travel of the NHS in England,” Dr. Philippa Whitford, a consultant surgeon at Crosshouse Hospital in Kilmarnock, said.
“I think it is rather hopeful for those who support a No vote for them to think that we would be sent a bag of money every year to keep our free prescriptions, our dental checks and our eye checks, our free personal care when the people of England sometimes never have that. They pay for prescriptions, they’ve lost free education and things like charges and so on is already being discussed,” Whitford told RIA Novosti.
The NHS was introduced in England in 1946 and in Scotland in 1947 and designed to bring free health services to patients at the point of use. The service has been traditionally funded through general taxation.
Whitford, who previously supported the pro-UK Labor Party, said she was dismayed to find she had become the target of attack after expressing her concerns about the future of the NHS and accused the No side of hypocrisy.
“What upsets me about getting attacked by Labor politicians is that their team south of the border, like Andy Burnham MP [Shadow Health Minister for England], are jumping up and down talking about charges and talking about the NHS being privatized in 5 years, but when I make that comment in Scotland as a doctor they accuse me of lying and scaremongering,” the surgeon said.
Whitford pointed to the growing clamour amongst Westminster MPs and the English electorate to scrap the Barnett Formula, the mechanism that determines what annual block grant the Scottish Government spends on public services in Scotland.
“The Barnett Formula has a big target painted on it. We know from a recent survey of the English electorate that two thirds of them want the Barnet Formula gone which means it would take 10 percent out our budget, that’s over £4billion,” the surgeon added.
“That is equivalent of our entire schools budget. You can’t just make that up by cutting a few corners and edges,” Whitford told RIA Novosti.
“Whatever pitiful amount of income tax control they give us if there is a No vote what they’ll say is Barnett is gone, you want a free NHS then put your taxes up,” Whitford said. “If we vote No and we really want to keep a free NHS our taxes will have to go up. That is on the cards within a very short time following a No vote.”
Anti-Scottish independence campaigners argue that because health is presently devolved to Scotland the NHS would not be privatized as Whitford claims, but the surgeon said that view was naïve.
“The idea being promoted by the No side that because Scotland has devolved operational control over the NHS that we’ll be ok, I think that view is naïve.”
“I think people accept that what is on offer with a No vote is just to accept the ongoing stagnation and decline and deprivation and everything that comes from that or to say it’s down to us and how we build a better Scotland. I think that is a very empowering thing,” Whitford added.
Scots go to the polls on 18th September and will be asked one question, “Should Scotland become an independent country?”
