The Health Secretary has not ruled out taking even more payments from private healthcare-linked donors in her new role

Labour has been drawn into a fresh donations row after Yvette Cooper was revealed to have received hundreds of thousands of pounds from a private healthcare-linked donor.

The new Health Secretary received nearly half a million pounds from businessman Peter Hearn over the course of a decade, who held a significant stake in recruitment firm Odgers Berndtson, which headhunted for the NHS and private healthcare firms.

Odgers Berndtson has helped the NHS hire high-ranking executives across a number of senior roles - including former TalkTalk chief Baroness Harding, who led the controversial Test and Trace programme during the pandemic.

Between 2015 and 2024, Ms Cooper received £248,619 from the businessman directly, as well as £220,623 from two of his companies, MPM Connect and OPD Group, the British Medical Journal revealed.

Neither firm has a publicly available website, but both are registered to the same address in Hertfordshire.

A spokesman for the Health Secretary said Mr Hearn had recently died when the BMJ asked about the donations - and denied receiving funds from private healthcare firms.

According to an FT report from 2023, Mr Hearn had been a consistent donor to Labour since 2014, making gifts both to the central party and to some of its prominent MPs.

But Ms Cooper is facing fresh questions over the cash thanks to her new job - has not ruled out taking further donations from private healthcare-linked donors in the role.

Doctors have raised the alarm over the Health Secretary's apparent links to private healthcare firms - though no parliamentary rules appear to have been breached.

General practitioner Emily Ball, director of the anti-NHS privatisation campaign group Every Doctor, said: "Political donations from individuals or companies with commercial ties to the NHS, whether through recruitment, private provision, or consultancy, inevitably raise questions about whose interests are being served."

She warned Ms Cooper that she should refrain from financial relationships which could create a "perception of conflict of interest" and avoid donations from any "private health linked firms or individuals while in post".

Companies linked to Mr Hearn have previously donated to other senior Labour figures, including Health Secretary-turned Defence Secretary Wes Streeting, who received £148,475 from OPD Group and MPM Connect Limited between 2023 and 2025.

Across the same period, OPD Group also donated to Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander and former Defence Secretary Dan Jarvis, who received £15,000 and £42,000 respectively.

Tony O'Sullivan, a retired paediatrician and co-chairman of campaign group Keep Our NHS Public, said Andy Burnham should put an end to "ministers maintaining monetary conflicts of interest".

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"Mr Burnham has set out to rebuild trust that politicians work for the population. To succeed, he must set a new ethical standard for conduct in public office," he said.

Pointing to a "revolving door" between the private sector and NHS, he said public services must be championed by those without "compromising relationships with competing private interests".

Steve Taylor, general practitioner co-lead for the Doctors' Association UK, said that despite a lack of parliamentary rule-breaches, the Health Secretary should be held to the same ethical standards as NHS doctors.

"NHS doctors are prohibited from accepting small gifts from pharmaceutical companies, such as a pen or a notepad, because of the risk of the perception of influence.

"Ministers responsible for the NHS should be held to at least the same standard," he said.

A spokesman for Yvette Cooper said: "As has been reported many times, Mr Hearn kindly donated money to fund Yvette's office staff, which has all been fully declared and is compliant with all the rules."

"To suggest that Yvette Cooper receives money from private healthcare firms is simply nonsense," the spokesman added.

A spokesman for Wes Streeting previously said: "Peter kindly funds staff for Wes's office. Wes is proud to have successful business people supporting the Labour Party in our campaign to win the next election and give Britain the fresh start it deserves.

"This has been declared in the proper way in accordance with the rules."

Mr Jarvis also previously said the money had also supported the running of his offices, and had been fully registered with the Commons authorities.