Staff need to be consulted on NHS Hull plans for a social
enterprise
28th October 2009
Unite, the largest union in the country, is calling for a ballot
of staff at NHS Hull over proposals to hive off NHS services in the
city into a social enterprise.
Unite fears for the future of joined-up services in one of
Britain’s most deprived cities - with high rates of cancer, heart
disease, obesity and teenage pregnancy - if the social enterprise
experiment goes ahead.
Unite said that a proper consultation process for the staff was
not in place and that the social enterprise could be imposed ‘by
stealth’.
Unite, along with the other staff side unions, will be asking
managers at the trust, which covers 250,000 people, to hold a
ballot of the 1,500 staff, as to whether they are in favour of
transferring to a social enterprise to be called City Health Care
Partnership.
The call comes in the wake of the Department of Health’s recent
announcement that the NHS should be ‘the preferred provider’ of
choice. This means that outside providers can only be asked to
tender if a trust is deemed to be failing and has not taken
remedial measures.
Managers at NHS Hull will be asked to reconsider their plans for
a social enterprise, which are commercial organisations, one step
removed from the NHS proper, that can win – and lose – contracts to
provide services to the NHS for a limited period of time.
If the social enterprise loses its contracts to, for example, a
North American private healthcare company in five years time, jobs
could be lost and services to the public could become fragmented.
The ethos of a NHS providing a unified, joined-up service for
patients could disappear.
There is also the issue about whether a social enterprise would
pay VAT – a tax from which the NHS is currently exempt. Such an
additional financial burden could question the whole viability of
the social enterprise experiment.
Unite regional officer, Tony Randerson, said: "It is clear that
social enterprises are a leap in the dark in terms of provision of
services; the employment conditions and pensions of NHS staff that
could be severely eroded, or even lost; and the viability of the
financial model proposed, if VAT is charged on its services.
"You could get a situation where a visit by a health visitor to
a young mother suffering from postnatal depression will result in
the organisation having to pay VAT when it comes to internal
accounting. That’s unacceptable.
"We want to make the public aware of what a social enterprise
will actually mean for families and communities in Hull - one of
the most socially deprived cities in the country. Social
enterprises can’t be imposed by stealth. The people of Hull and the
NHS staff involved deserve the widest possible consultation."
ENDS
Tony Randerson 07958 514683; Karen Reay, national officer,
health 07798 531 004; David Fleming, national officer, health
07798 531013; Shaun Noble, communications officer (health sector)
020 7420 8951 or 07768 693 940
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