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Unite and NHS supporters are backing fresh moves to stop private companies profiteering from lucrative NHS contracts and bring the NHS back to its founding principles. A Private Members’ Bill to be introduced to Parliament on November 21 would end the market free-for-all which has seen more than half of all new NHS contracts handed to private providers.

The bill would make the health secretary provide a comprehensive health service, free at the point of delivery and prevent NHS Trusts from prioritising private income at the expense of NHS patients. The move is described as a “lifeline for the NHS” by Unite general secretary Len McCluskey who has called for broad support for the Bill.

The National Health Service (amended duties and powers) Bill is a private members’ bill promoted by Labour MP for Eltham, Clive Efford. The Bill would put the brakes on the most damaging aspects of the Tories’ pro-privatisation health and social care Act 2012, which senior Tories themselves admit was a ‘huge strategic error’.

Mr McCluskey said, “Our NHS has been thrown a lifeline which MPs must seize now or risk alienating huge swathes of the NHS- loving British public. It is a chance for MPs from across the political divide to ditch the very worst parts of the government’s health and social care Act and to end once and for all the market-driven privatisation of our NHS.

“David Cameron would do well to remember that he has no mandate to sell our NHS piece by piece to the private sector. The public was promised no top down reorganisation only for the NHS to fall victim to the biggest and most costliest upheaval in its history.

“With senior Tories admitting that the £3bn NHS shake-up has been their biggest mistake in government, now is the time for all MPs to right that wrong.” And Unite is building support against a trade deal which would allow American multinationals to seize NHS contracts through international tribunals whose decisions are made behind closed doors by corporate lawyers.

The decisions of these tribunals cannot be challenged and are outside the jurisdiction of both UK and European Courts. The trade deal would give US multinationals unprecedented leverage against Governments to seize public sector contracts.

Unite is demanding to know why David Cameron has so far refused to use his veto in Europe that would exclude NHS contracts from the trade deal known as TTIP.  “The question still being asked is why David Cameron is refusing to take the NHS out of TTIP,” said Len McCluskey.

“People are firmly opposed to the inclusion of the NHS in this controversial EU-US trade deal known as TTIP. It’s time for David Cameron to stand up for Britain and use his veto in Europe to protect our NHS from this dangerous trade deal.”

Clive Efford MP, whose Bill is getting its second reading on November 21 said, “It is absolutely essential that we act now to save our NHS before it is too late and top-quality healthcare for everyone is consigned to history. The National Health Service (amended duties and powers) Bill will reverse the devastating top-down re-organisation imposed on our NHS by the Tories.

“It will re-nationalise the NHS and save it from being dismantled further. And it will remove the dangerous competition and private care provisions which put private profits before patients’ care. The NHS is the service which is there for us from when we enter the world to when we come to leave it and it is being shamelessly dismantled before our eyes.”

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