{"id":7246,"date":"2016-01-06T16:54:33","date_gmt":"2016-01-06T16:54:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=7246"},"modified":"2016-01-07T16:13:56","modified_gmt":"2016-01-07T16:13:56","slug":"fears-for-patient-care-and-jobs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=7246","title":{"rendered":"Fears for patient care and jobs"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The double whammy of two key failed NHS policies \u00e2\u20ac\u201c privatisation and PFI debt \u00e2\u20ac\u201c have contributed to the potential merger of two mid-Anglia NHS trusts \u00e2\u20ac\u201c possibly affecting patient care and jobs adversely.<\/p>\n

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Unite is raising these concerns as Hinchingbrooke hospital in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough and Stamford NHS Trust have agreed to a review of \u00e2\u20ac\u0098organisational form\u00e2\u20ac\u2122.<\/p>\n

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Unite\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s members at the trusts work in a variety of occupations, primarily in pathology, pharmacy and estates.<\/p>\n

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Unite is due to meet managers of the trusts tomorrow (January 7) and Friday (January 8), along with other unions, to probe into exactly what this will mean for patient care and jobs at the financially challenged trusts.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bIf you look at the back story you can see a double whammy of failure here of two key NHS polices \u00e2\u20ac\u201c privatisation and the private finance initiative,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 commented Ian Maidlow, Unite regional co-ordinating officer.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u0098Very concerned\u00e2\u20ac\u2122<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe are very concerned about what this could mean for patient care and also for the jobs of hardworking health professionals who have been caught in the middle of the vicious ideological onslaught on the NHS ethos by the Tories since 2010,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he added.<\/p>\n

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The Huntingdon hospital was the first in the NHS to be run by a private company<\/a>, Circle, but\u00c2\u00a0 it walked away in January last year \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and the hospital\u00c2\u00a0 was\u00c2\u00a0 returned to NHS management in April.<\/p>\n

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The Peterborough and Stamford trust has been burdened by debt problems caused by a 35-year PFI scheme.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bIt is too early to say precisely what changes are being proposed to services, and we will work hard to represent the interests both of our members and the integrity of the services they provide in such a dedicated fashion to the people of Cambridgeshire,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 said Maidlow.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bBut we fully expect that there will be a detrimental impact on service provision. Whether that will just involve additional travel for patients we are unable to say at the moment.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe will be meeting senior management of both trusts to ascertain more details about their proposals. Until that happens we will not have the financial figures. The timeline for the approval of the merger is, I understand, April 2016 \u00e2\u20ac\u201c which is very quick.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

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In December, the National Audit Office disclosed that Peterborough and Stamford hospitals’ debt for 2014-2015 was \u00c2\u014138.5m, while Hinchingbrooke’s deficit for the same period was \u00c2\u014111.4m.<\/p>\n

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In February 2012, Circle took operational control of Hinchingbrooke Health Care NHS Trust, but in January last year, it gave up its contract, blaming \u00e2\u20ac\u0098unprecedented\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 increases in A&E attendances and funding cuts.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The double whammy of two key failed NHS policies \u00e2\u20ac\u201c privatisation and PFI debt \u00e2\u20ac\u201c have contributed to the potential merger of two mid-Anglia NHS trusts \u00e2\u20ac\u201c possibly affecting patient care and jobs adversely.   Unite is raising these concerns as Hinchingbrooke hospital in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough and Stamford NHS Trust have agreed to a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[459,29],"wps_subtitle":"Unite concerns as two NHS trusts gear up for merger","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7246"}],"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=7246"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7246\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7248,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7246\/revisions\/7248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}