{"id":1983,"date":"2014-10-23T08:00:13","date_gmt":"2014-10-23T07:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=1983"},"modified":"2014-10-22T15:43:34","modified_gmt":"2014-10-22T14:43:34","slug":"nhs-sale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=1983","title":{"rendered":"NHS for sale"},"content":{"rendered":"
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New update produced for Unite by the NHS Support Federation reveals scale of NHS sell-off<\/em><\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe will not be selling off the NHS,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 said prime minister David Cameron on June 7, 2011.<\/p>\n

 
\nThese were his famous last words as the health and social care Act was pushed through Parliament in 2012 and came into effect a year later, paving the way for unbridled privatisation of the NHS.<\/p>\n

 
\nEarlier this month, the Times revealed<\/a> that the Tories themselves believe restructuring the NHS through the Act was a huge mistake, with one unnamed senior official saying that Cameron did not even understand the controversial reforms.<\/p>\n

 
\nAnother official said Chancellor George Osborne \u00e2\u20ac\u015bkicked himself\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 for not preventing the health service\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s restructuring, which has cost the taxpayer billions.<\/p>\n

 
\nBut for patients, health workers and all those who care about an NHS that is renowned the world over, these shameless politicians\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 regrets are too little, too late.<\/p>\n

 
\nThe competition effect<\/strong> <\/em><\/p>\n

 
\nThe scale of privatisation as the health and social care Act began its destruction of the NHS a little over a year ago is exposed in a new Unite update by the NHS Support Federation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"competition_effect\"<\/a>
\nClinical commissioning groups<\/a> (CCGs), which replaced primary care trusts (PCTs) in the Act, are groups led by local GPs to commission (or purchase) health services in a given geographic area. The purpose of CCGs was to create a clinically driven commissioning system that would ostensibly be more sensitive to the needs of patients.<\/p>\n

 
\nAs it turns out, they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve ended up being more sensitive to the needs of private profiteers \u00e2\u20ac\u201c unlike the PCTs before them, CCGs have greater legal obligations to open contracts to competitive tender, regardless of the public\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s wishes or consideration for the service\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s quality.<\/p>\n

 
\nAs the update reveals, since CCGs were first introduced in April 2013, the value of CCG contract awards has skyrocketed. In the first quarter last year, the total value of CCG contracts was \u00c2\u0141266m. Over the same time period this year, from April to September 2014, the total value was just over \u00c2\u01412bn \u00e2\u20ac\u201c a five-fold increase.<\/p>\n

 
\nWhat\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s even more damning is who has won these contracts. Fifty-six percent, or well over half, have gone to private sector providers. In total, CCGs have put \u00c2\u01417bn worth of contracts before the market since the groups\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 inception last April.<\/p>\n

 
\nIn response to these findings, NHS Support Federation director Paul Evans said, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bThis evidence is proof that the NHS changes will result in wide-scale privatisation.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bCCGs are being forced to tender NHS contracts and the private sector is winning the lion\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s share of these contracts put before the market,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he added.<\/p>\n

 
\nPrivate sector takeover: who stands to profit?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

 
\nThe government will have you believe that the competition brought on by private bidder competition will translate into better care for a better price. But as is so often the case with the current government, promises never reflect eventual realities.<\/p>\n

 
\nOne prime example<\/a> is the recent \u00c2\u0141235m contract for musculoskeletal services in West Sussex, which private provider Bupa won, beating out an NHS provider. The contract essentially hands over all control of orthopaedic services in West Sussex to the private provider.<\/p>\n

 
\nDr James Walsh, a local councillor and former GP, slammed the private takeover, saying, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bI wonder where profits in a profit-making organisation are going to go. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a private company and I have serious concerns about this privatisation by stealth.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 
\nHe and others in the community are especially worried about how the takeover will affect the Western Sussex Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, which lost out to Bupa in bidding for the contract. The loss could cripple the community\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hospital and A & E services, potentially draining the trust of \u00c2\u014130m.<\/p>\n

 
\nPyrrhic victory<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

 
\nEarlier this month saw one victory for the NHS and the public, in which a CCG had been pressured into selling off public services to private contractors.<\/p>\n

 
\nThe Cambridge and Peterborough CCG had very secretively put out a jaw-dropping \u00c2\u0141800m contract to tender for a care pathway for older people\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s services. Cambridgeshire campaigners launched a courageous offensive against what the Morning Star called<\/a> \u00e2\u20ac\u015bthe biggest potential privatisation so far since the health and social care Act.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 
\nEventually, the NHS provider, Cambridge University Hospitals, won the contract, but only after campaign groups demanded the CCG engage the local public in the decision.<\/p>\n

 
\nThe contract bidding process, as detailed in the Morning Star article, shows just how underhanded these deals can be. The CCG secretly shortlisted mostly private providers, and after public pressure and threats of legal action demanding greater transparency, the CCG published a heavily redacted report in the very last minute.<\/p>\n

 
\nTo make matters worse, it was revealed that the clinician leading the tendering process had recently been a director of a subsidiary of Virgin, one of the private providers bidding on the contract.<\/p>\n

 
\nThough this is one victory against the mounting privatisation of the NHS, surely it is a pyrrhic one \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the \u00c2\u01411m wasted on the tendering process could have been completely avoided had NHS services simply been awarded to the NHS from the outset.<\/p>\n

 
\nAnd if the tide of private contractors taking over the NHS continues rising unabated, as the Unite update suggests, then local campaign groups may just not be enough to stop it.<\/p>\n

 
\nFor more information about the NHS\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 continued privatisation and how you can get involved to protect to our health service, visit the NHS Support Federation website here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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New update produced for Unite by the NHS Support Federation reveals scale of NHS sell-off   \u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe will not be selling off the NHS,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 said prime minister David Cameron on June 7, 2011.   These were his famous last words as the health and social care Act was pushed through Parliament in 2012 and came […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1984,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17],"tags":[29,81],"wps_subtitle":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1983"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1983"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1983\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1986,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1983\/revisions\/1986"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}