\n Pollock, a clinical professor of public health at Newcastle University, said that the use of private healthcare capacity in the NHS was also making it harder to train the next generation of doctors \u2013 pointing to particular concerns from the Royal College of Ophthalmologists about cataract surgeries.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cIt’s a very bad idea,\u201d she told the Sunday National<\/a>. \u201cIt’s bad for patients. It’s bad for medicine. It’s bad for care \u2013 and it\u2019s bad for the public purse.”\n<\/p>\n \n Asked about Pollock\u2019s study after Scottish Labour<\/a> refused to respond to its findings, Sarwar said a two-tier NHS system was \u201clike we have in Scotland right now\u201d.\n<\/p>\n \n Pushed on the study\u2019s findings, he repeated: \u201cLike what\u2019s happening in Scotland right now.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n \n He went on: \u201cWhat I’m saying to you is, you live in Scotland, and the real world in Scotland is that record numbers of people are going private to get treatment.\n<\/p>\n \n \u201cThere are people in our country right now who are paying \u00a312,000 to get a hip replacement, \u00a38000 to get a knee replacement, \u00a35000 to get a cataract.\n<\/p>\n \n \u201cThe answer to that is not to keep the same people in power that have driven our NHS into being a two-tier system.\n<\/p>\n \n \u201cMy answer to that is to get rid of the SNP<\/a>, not be cheerleaders for that.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n Asked whether he would reconsider his policy of using private services in Scotland\u2019s NHS in the wake of the evidence from the survey<\/a>, Sarwar said: \u201cI’m engaging about what’s happening in Scotland and I’m looking at the evidence and the record of an SNP Government, which I’m not willing to see continue in Scotland.\n<\/p>\n \n READ MORE: Anas Sarwar rules out ‘ever’ taking seat in House of Lords<\/a>\n<\/p>\n \n \u201cSo if you want to fix the NHS, if you want to stop the two-tier system in Scotland, and if you want an NHS that survives in Scotland and returns to its founding principles, that means removing the SNP from power and voting for Scottish Labour on Thursday.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n Sarwar has repeatedly said a Labour government in Edinburgh<\/a> would use private capacity to deliver NHS services, with his party’s election manifesto pledging to deploy \u201call available capacity no matter where it is, even if that is elsewhere in the UK or it means purchasing capacity from the independent sector on a short-term basis\u201d.\n<\/p>\n \n Elsewhere, Sarwar denied suggestions that he had backed suggestions from Dr David Offord \u2013 a dentist who runs Vermilion, a firm with private dental clinics in Edinburgh and Kelso<\/a> \u2013 that NHS Scotland should not provide certain services such as crowns and orthodontics<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n \n Offord had suggested shifting such services entirely onto private practices, leaving the NHS to focus on prevention.\n<\/p>\n \n Scottish Dental Magazine reported that Sarwar had \u201cwholeheartedly agreed with Dr Offord that the balance must shift toward preventative care\u201d.\n<\/p>\n \n \n Asked if he agreed with Offord that NHS Scotland<\/a> should stop providing certain dental services, Sarwar said: \u201cThat’s not what happened. The wholehearted agreement was the fact that we have a broken system right now where we have a two-tier dental service.\n<\/p>\n \n \u201cRight now, there’ll be people phoning a dental practice and they’re being told, \u2018if you’re willing to go private, we can see you next week or we can see you in days, but if you want to wait on the NHS, we can see you in three weeks or four weeks\u2019.\n<\/p>\n \n \u201cThat is a two-tier NHS and NHS dentistry, and I wholeheartedly agree that needs to end.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n He went on: \u201cIn actual fact, we’ve seen a partial privatisation of orthodontics by the SNP.\n<\/p>\nScottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar dressed up a dentist for a photo shoot (Image: PA)\n<\/p>\n
An image showing Dr David Offord (centre, left) and Anas Sarwar (centre, right) at the Vermilion Biennial Symposium dental conference (Image: Vermilion\/LinkedIn)\n<\/p>\n