Background
Whitford was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland and moved to Scotland at the age of 10.
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Philippa Whitford
Edit ProfileEducation
She was educated at Wood Green: Saint Angela"s Providence Convent Secondary School in London and Douglas Academy in Milngavie, before studying at the University of Glasgow, where she graduated with medical degrees.
Career
She is the Scottish National Party Health spokesperson in the House of Commons. Whitford worked as a consultant breast surgeon at Crosshouse Hospital for more than 18 years. Just after the First Gulf War and during the First Palestinian Intifada at the age of 30, Whitford had served for a year and a half as a medical volunteer in a United Nations hospital in Gaza.
Whitford joined the Scottish National Party in 2012.
She became involved with the campaigning that occurred during the Scottish independence referendum in 2014. She had spoken in favour of independence, advocating it as a way of protecting National Health Service Scotland from the same kind of "creeping privatisation agenda undermining services in England." She helped bring the National Health Service to the fore of the independence campaign when an online video of her arguing against the dangers of privatisation went viral.
House of Commons
Whitford was selected to contest Central Ayrshire for the Scottish National Party in the 2015 General Election. She polled 26,999 votes and 53.2% of the vote and defeated the incumbent Labour Member of Parliament, Brian Donohoe, by 13,589.
She made her maiden speech on 2 June 2015.
Membership
56th United Kingdom Parliament]
She has been the Member of Parliament (Member of Parliament) for Central Ayrshire since May 2015.
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Born
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Nationality
United Kingdom -
Political Party
Scottish National Party