Sick children, including cancer patients, are being refused a free education on the wards of one of the country’s leading children’s hospitals if they go to private schools.
Instead, their outraged parents have been told to pay £115 an hour for the one-to-one tutoring that state-school children receive for free.
One little boy, who spent months at the Royal Hospital for Children and Young People in Edinburgh, had to watch as children in neighbouring beds received the daily schooling he was denied.
The hospital – known locally as the ‘Sick Kids’ – has tutors provided by Labour-run Edinburgh City Council to teach children too poorly to attend school.
At other prominent children’s hospitals, such as Great Ormond Street Hospital in London, a free education is provided for all inpatient children.
But in Edinburgh, where 1 in 4 pupils attend private schools, the city council has ruled that sick children from those schools must not be treated in the same way as other ill youngsters.
When one parent complained, the council’s Head of Education (Inclusion), Dr Lynne Binnie told them that ‘unfortunately, as you have chosen to privately educate your son, he cannot be supported by this team – you have effectively opted out of state-funded education and supports’.
Parents affected have criticised the policy as ‘politically motivated and say it denies their children a ‘basic human right’.
One little boy, who spent months at the Royal Hospital for Children and Young People in Edinburgh, pictured, had to watch as children in neighbouring beds received the daily schooling he was denied
A sick boy getting chemotherapy at a hospital. Pictured: Stock image
One parent of a little boy undergoing chemotherapy for blood cancer said very sick children were the victims of a ‘deplorable ‘Them and Us’ situation’.
The mum of three from Edinburgh explained how her son suddenly became ill in August 2024 and was hospitalised within days.
‘He faced months on a hospital ward in tightly controlled conditions, unable to go home or go to school,’ she told The Mail on Sunday.
‘We immediately thought, “What are we going to do about school?”, but we were told there was an amazing tutor on the ward.
‘When they realised he went to a private school, they told us there was a problem. We challenged it but… it was, ‘You have decided to go private so you’re not getting any of the benefits now”.’
The mother, a lawyer, said she and her husband were in no doubt that ‘very sick children were the victims of a divisive and ideological policy’.
Unable to afford the charges, the family resorted to teaching their son, now eight, who normally attends George Watson’s College, themselves.
Edinburgh city councillor James Dalgleish claimed the hospital was ‘following Scottish Government guidance’.
But this is not the case at the Royal Hospital in Glasgow, where children are given a free education with a charge later made back to the relevant local authority. Shadow Cabinet Secretary for Finance, Craig Hoy MSP, vowed to raise the issue at Holyrood and added: ‘Councils should not be levying these punitive charges on sick children.’
A Scottish Government spokesman said: ‘Decisions around fees for Hospital Education Services are a matter for local authorities and NHS Boards to consider with Independent Schools as appropriate.’
