Bury St Edmunds MP’s links to private healthcare listed in trade union dossier

Trade union Unite has published the names of 70 MPs who had links to private healthcare interests when voting to sell-off the NHS –including Bury St Edmunds’ MP.

As reported in the Bury Free Press last year, Unite’s dossier shows that David Ruffley’s Conservative Constituency Association received a £10,000 donation from Caroline Nash, wife of Care UK chairman John Nash, in 2009.

Len McCluskey, Unite general secretary, said: “From lobbying links to investments, and in some cases direct donations, it is clear that many MPs who supported the NHS sell-off had links to the very private healthcare companies which stood to benefit.”

The report, published Tuesday, states that ‘an estimated 96 per cent of Care UK’s business, amounting to £400 million in 2013, comes from the NHS’.

It also lists Mr Ruffley as a strategic adviser to Partnership Group Holdings Ltd, which offers residential care fee insurance and is majority owned by Cinven Funds, whose UK investments include 25 Bupa hospitals and a stake in BMI Healthcare.

Mr Ruffley said: “The House of Commons’ Register of Members’ Interests is a very good idea and I comply with it. Whether Unite are so transparent I somewhat doubt.”