With all the false outrage that is now the default position for any SNP minister talking about any subject, Nicola Sturgeon launched the SNP election campaign with what amounted to a pledge to ban US involvement in the NHS.
But Sturgeon has been caught red-handed in a breathtaking act of hypocrisy.
Sturgeon was peddling the tired line that the NHS was somehow under threat from Brexit - only to be caught out by the simple fact that under her government millions of pounds have been paid to US companies by Scottish NHS boards, with the full knowledge of Ministers.
SNP under-resourcing and mis-management of the Scottish NHS has been so drastic that desperate cost-cutting measures have been needed, not least in Highland.
The "Highland Quality Approach" was developed with US firms, at considerable cost, but it came under fire in the Sturrock report into the scandal of allegations about bullying and harassment in NHS Highland.
Considering comments about the appropriateness, effectiveness and transferability of management ideas from the United States, John Sturrock QC noted that:
"The impact may be marked: one senior consultant commented:
“NHS Highland has followed the ethos of the Virginia Mason unit in the USA. Our managers have visited Seattle many times, as recently as November 2018 at significant cost to NHSH.
Forming a large part of the Highland Quality Approach, success in Seattle followed confrontation with clinical staff and the active reduction in engagement of clinical staff in hospital management. NHSH has followed this trend and reduced the influence of working clinicians in decision making. Individuals with an alternative viewpoint are marginalised and ostracised and have no recourse to the decision making apparatus. This has been a management tactic …” "
And this is no isolated case. Five other Scottish health boards are introducing the "Value Management" scheme as part of a huge contract for the US-based Institute for Healthcare Improvement or IHI.
SNP hypocrisy is such a common occurrence that it has become part of the daily diet of Scottish life, but this latest dose is just too much to swallow.
Scottish Conservative MSP Miles Briggs has demanded a full investigation by the Auditor General into the latest IHI contract, and full details from Sturgeon as to what other private US firms have been awarded Scottish NHS contracts.
It is now absolutely clear: you cannot trust anything the incompetent SNP says about the Scottish NHS.
