Victory for Mail on Sunday as NHS U-turns on tutor ban for private pupils
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By ELIZABETH IVENS
Published: | Updated:
Public bodies accused of 'morally indefensible' and 'politically motivated' discrimination against privately educated children have backed down after they were exposed by The Mail on Sunday.
Our revelations sparked widespread anger at what was likened to ideologically driven class warfare.
In the first case, parents were charged £115-an-hour hospital tuition fees for their sick children because they attended private schools while state school patients received free tuition.
The policy was overturned last week following the MoS exposé and parents paid tribute to our campaigning.
A London NHS trust has also backed down after it refused to treat an eight-year-old boy because he went to private school. It has now reversed its policy.
This week's first victory comes after the MoS revealed last year that children on cancer wards at the Royal Hospital for Children and Young People in Edinburgh got free tuition as in-patients only if they went to state schools. Parents of fee-paying schoolchildren had to fund the £115-an-hour charge.
Finn, now nine, who spent months on a cancer ward at the hospital, watched on as other children received the daily schooling he was denied from a tutor funded by Labour-run Edinburgh City Council.
His school, George Watson's College, could not send in a teacher because of strict infection-control rules. Our report led to debates in the Scottish Parliament and the city council has just voted to change its policy.
Parents were charged £115-an-hour hospital tuition fees for their sick children because they attended private schools while state school patients received free tuition. (Stock Photo)
Finn's mother, Kirsty, a lawyer, said the 'deplorable' and 'divisive ideological policy' discriminated against families 'paying all the same taxes to the city council as other parents'.
She added: 'We are very grateful to The Mail on Sunday for shining a spotlight on a policy that had no justification.'
Kingston and Richmond NHS Foundation Trust – last year exposed by the MoS for denying treatment to a boy with a crippling joint condition – has also backed down. His mother had blamed Labour's war on VAT relief on private school fees for emboldening NHS managers to deny him help.
The trust eventually reversed its policy and his mother has now revealed her son has received treatment and a full apology.
But Sussex Community NHS Foundation Trust refused to reverse its decision not to treat an eight-year-old boy with a speech defect because he was privately educated.
An NHS England spokesman, said: 'Access to NHS services should be based on clinical need, and not an individual's background or ability to pay.'
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