Nat Myth No.2: “Staying in the union would destroy Scotland’s NHS”

A few months back, Little Britannia promised to bring you our very own Nat Mythbusters series.  Don’t worry, our long, mysterious absence is not an indication we’ve been brainwashed - we haven't skipped off into the sunset of the Land of Yes. We’ve actually been extremely busy helping to develop and contribute to a new campaign site; so much so that we’ve been neglecting our own poor wee blog.

In all the months since Little Britannia’s last posting, the Yes campaign has still not fully clarified exactly what it is they want us to vote for. One wonders if they even know themselves.

Meanwhile, Little Britannia continues to wait for an answer to that EU question we put to the First Minister back in February. By now, it’s probably reasonable to assume that we won’t get an answer any time before the referendum, so we’ll just need to rely on the 30-year rule instead. By then Eck will either be long gone or too old to care anyway.

Nevertheless, we’re back. And with just weeks to go until Scotland makes either the best or worst decision of its entire existence, we’re on a mission to bulldoze through as many Nationalist myths as possible.

For now, let’s look at the NHS.

A few weeks ago, possibly with no other credible card left to play except from the Joker, Alex Salmond all of a sudden announced that staying in the UK would destroy Scotland’s NHS. His claim manifested out of nowhere like a tidal wave in the bath and seemed to have the desired effect. According to the SNP (and anyone else with a tin hat), those baddies in Westminster intend to privatise the NHS.

'But the NHS is devolved in Scotland', we hear you shout! It is, but who cares about minor details like that when you’ve got tales to tell? Alex’s argument – after the small issue of devolution was pointed out to him - was that privatisation of the NHS elsewhere in the UK would affect the spending on Scotland’s health services.

Eck’s concerns were even backed up by an actual real-life surgeon, Dr Phillipa Whitford, who just happened to be a member of the SNP. Dr Whitford soon became the face of the SNP’s NHS terror-campaign; her passionate speech viewed over 600,000 times on YouTube and her statements cited by Alex Salmond during the heated exchanges in Holyrood.

Now look who is scaremongering

Unfortunately for the Yes crew, Dr Whitford’s speech turned out to be more suited to an episode of Jackanory rather than a campaign based on our entire country’s future.

Firstly, it’s not privatisation. It's outsourcing and it happens up here in Scotland as well. Money for outsourced services still comes from public funds. In other words, it doesn’t matter if the money comes from the UK taxpayer or from the bottom of the First Minister’s toilet; it still ends up in the same place. 

Sir Leonard Fenwick, the Chief Executive of the North East NHS Foundation, described Dr Whitford’s claims as “the biggest lot of crap I have ever heard.” And for extra measure, he added: “It is just codswallop.” (Isn’t that a great word?).

More surgeons and medical profession honchos came forward to trash the apparent tall tales.

Dr Anna Gregor CBE, a consultant oncologist for NHS Lothian who is credited with leading Scotland’s cancer strategy, branded the Nats' health service concerns as “total and utter lies.” 

Professor Alan Rodger, another former oncologist and the man who developed the Beatson West of Scotland Cancer Centre, said that the SNP were “deliberately spreading fear about the NHS and its future.” 

There were further outcries from Professor Malcolm Macleod, Professor of Neurology and Translational Neuroscience at the University of Edinburgh and David McCausland, Head of Economics at the University of Aberdeen.

And Mike Dixon, Professor of Surgery and Consultant Surgeon at the Edinburgh Breast Unit at the Western General Hospital, wrote a nice piece in The Scotsman that basically confirmed what all his medical colleagues were saying: that the SNP were talking complete jobbies.

Meanwhile, expert analysis from the Institute for Fiscal Studies has shown that if Scotland were to separate from the UK, it would face extra spending cuts of £6 billion - bad news for those of us who like our NHS freebies.

And as if things couldn’t get any more ridiculous, while the Nats slam Westminster for ‘privatising’ the NHS in England and Wales, it turns out that the Scottish Government have been sneakily doing exactly the same thing up here.

So, when a Nat tells you that Scotland’s NHS is at risk from a corrupt government, they’re telling the truth. It’s called the SNP.