Mrs Skinner has invited Expressions of Interest from non-government hospital operators to deliver redevelopments of Shellharbour, Bowral, Goulburn, Wyong and Maitland hospitals.

Under the partnership plan, successful operators would construct the hospitals and then run them on behalf of the NSW Government.

‘’(It’s) an exciting new initiative which will see a number of new hospitals delivered faster, bigger and better than we had originally announced,’’ Mrs Skinner said.

‘’...This approach brings the expertise of both public and non-government systems to deliver the best outcomes for patients.

‘’These hospitals will be publicly funded and run by established non-government hospital operators who already have an Australian track record.

‘’Public patients admitted to these hospitals will continue to receive their care free of charge.’’

Mrs Skinner indicated that the partnerships may seen entirely new hospitals built, rather than upgrades to existing sites.

‘’A partnership approach will allow us to leverage the capital and expertise of non-government hospital operators and might mean we can build a new hospital rather than upgrade an existing one,’’ she said.

Shellharbour MP Anna Watson has hit back at the surprise announcement.

‘’The government has spent six long years ‘planning’ this upgrade,’’ Ms Watson said.

‘’Today, the Minister has dropped an unexplained, undetailed, uncosted new proposal, which simply privatises Shellharbour Hospital.’’

Ms Watson said the Liberals had embarked upon this privatisation of hospitals before and it had failed miserably.

‘’Port Macquarie Hospital was built and managed under a public-private partnership in the early 1990s under Nick Greiner – the then NSW Carr Government had to buy it back,’’ she said.

‘’The government is making a big mistake reliving the failed privatisation experiment of two decades ago.’’

2:15pm

The redevelopment of Shellharbour Hospital will be done under a public-private partnership, the NSW Government has revealed.

NSW Health Minister Jillian Skinner is set to use question time to make the announcement on Thursday afternoon.

Details about the partnership are unclear, however Illawarra parliamentary secretary Gareth Ward told the Mercury that public patients would be treated the same as private patients under any arrangement.

‘’At the last election I committed the government to $251 million to improve hospital facilities at Shellharbour,’’ Mr Ward said.

‘’I’m firmly committed to this but I believe we can do more by entering into a public private partnership to offer more services, better services in the Illawarra.

‘’One of the preconditions I’ve placed on this arrangement is that any public patient that walks into this facility will get the same treatment as private patients … that will be a guarantee.’’

On March 20, 2015, Mrs Skinner committed the $251 million during a visit to Shellharbour Hospital ahead of the state election.

At the time she said the upgrade would provide a ‘’major redevelopment which will double the operating theatre capacity and size, expand the emergency department, add an intensive care unit and provide new ward spaces and ambulatory care facilities’’.

An artist’s impression of the upgrade revealed a modern white building, however Mr Ward said the money could be spent to develop a new hospital at a different site.

‘’We will go to market to see whether we can expand above and beyond what the government is offering at the existing Shellharbour Hospital site, or if a new site in the Shellharbour area can be located,’’ he said.

Mr Ward said the timeline of the redevelopment would be unchanged.

‘’Construction works will still start in this term of government as we committed to at the election,’’ he said.

Public-private partnerships for hospitals have had a chequered history in Australia, with many of these arrangements ultimately collapsing. Unions claim such collaborations prioritise profits over patients.

However Mr Ward said the Shellharbour partnership would be a ‘’great win for health services and health jobs in the Illawarra’’.

‘’This is nothing new, we’ve seen government successfully partner with the private sector in many instances,’’ he said.

‘’Health services should never be run for the union movement, they should be run for the patients.’’