With the sun still glinting off the shiny equipment inside the £90 million KIMS Hospital, chairman Peter Goddard finds himself in an unexpected position heading into the general election.

“It is an interesting one,” he said. “Traditionally, the private sector has always benefitted when there has been a Labour government.

“However, I would prefer the country to continue on the journey it is on at the moment.”

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His conundrum has been caused by a pledge from Labour leader Ed Miliband to cap the amount of profit private firms can make from the NHS.

Under a Labour government, profits on all private sector contracts worth more than £500,000 will be limited, a situation which would be laughable according to KIMS president Steven Bernstein.

“What I find concerning about what Labour are saying at the moment is the idea they regard the privatisation of the NHS as something which is bad,” said the lawyer who founded the private hospital in Maidstone with Dr Phyllis Holt, Franz Dickmann and his son James.

“I have heard Labour politicians say they will create a situation where every patient on the NHS will be treated within the time frame expected, at an NHS hospital, at the cost needed, in this utopian scenario where they don’t need the private sector.

“It hasn’t happened ever before so it is not going to happen now. Every NHS trust is at capacity or finds itself in a situation where it is failing to achieve waiting list targets or has a lack of beds.

“As a consequence it is inevitable in the current climate for NHS Trusts to work with private hospitals to deal with capacity issues. This mindset that a private hospital is bad for the NHS is something that needs to be changed. We are here to work with them.”

Mr Bernstein has KIMS – short for Kent Institute of Medicine and Surgery – in his blood. He was approached by Franz Dickmann in 2006 to help get the project off the ground and spent the ensuing years winning funding from investors.

“It was very challenging,” he said. “We were out there in 2009 and 2010 when it was not a great time to raise money.

“It was like having several spinning plates. I’d notice one was stopping and as soon as I sorted it another wobbled. I was doing that with seven or eight plates.

“Once the concept was established and we were successful getting planning for this site, it was a matter of meeting after meeting selling the story to banks, financial institutions and equity investors.

“Everyone loved the principal. The concept of having a new hospital for Kent was something everyone understood.”

The hard work paid off when the hospital was opened by the Duke of Gloucester in April last year.

Its 200 consultants have since carried out open heart surgery on a number of occasions.

However, its 99 beds are only about 25% full despite its gleaming five theatres, two endoscopy suites and two cardiac labs.

“We’re not happy with that figure,” said Mr Goddard, a 30-year veteran in private healthcare who was regional director of 15 hospitals in London before his current role.

“Private hospitals operate between 50% and 60% capacity but with a lot of day case work as opposed to inpatient work. At midday you could be full and midnight half empty.

“We need to move to industry norm of more than 50% occupation, but we are barely a year old and done fantastically.

“The type of surgery that has been carried out here is a credit to the staff. We are now in the situation where we need to build the core specialities all private hospitals thrive on.

“That will bring consultants here and stop people having to go to London to get that kind of treatment.”

This mindset that a private hospital is bad for the NHS is something that needs to be changed. We are here to work with them...” - Steve Bernstein, KIMS Hospital

Allen Simpson, the Labour candidate for Maidstone and the Weald, said he can “see the concerns” of bosses at KIMS about his party’s relationship with private healthcare.

He said: “Labour is not about pulling the private sector away from the NHS. We are just saying NHS care should be preferential.

“A treatment should be carried out on the health service if it is available and at the right price. Our intention is reduce over-reliance on the private sector.

“We do not want to stop private provision where it is appropriate. They are part of the capacity to provide healthcare and KIMS are very good at what they do.”

Labour is most trusted to manage the NHS according to an exclusive poll for the KM Group.

The state of the NHS was the only issue Labour emerged as a clear leader on in research by Facts International, based in Ashford.

It found 42% of voters trusted the party, with 30% for the Conservatives. Of those backing Labour on the issue, 24% of likely Ukip voters trusted them more than any other party.

Ukip has sought to build up its standing on the NHS, but its efforts appear not to have cut through with voters.

The poll shows 8% trusted the party most compared to just 6% for the Liberal Democrats.

In the case of the Medway Maritime Hospital, which remains in special measures, more than half (52%) placed the blame on the hospital’s senior managers while over a third (35%) blamed government cuts in funding.

Labour was rated by most voters as the best party to tackle the issue (44%) followed by the Conservatives (32%) and then Ukip (12%).