NHS staff need to be consulted on Essex plans for a social
enterprise
18th March 2010
Unite, the largest union in the country, is calling for a ballot
of NHS staff in mid and south east Essex over proposals to hive off
NHS services into a social enterprise.
Unite fears for the future of joined-up services if the merged
community services of NHS Mid Essex and NHS South East Essex are
outsourced to the social enterprise.
The services that could be affected are in the Southend,
Chelmsford, Witham, Maldon and Braintree areas - covering more than
700,000 people - and will affect services provided by health
visitors, nursery nurses, district nurses and school nurses.
Unite said that management gave a commitment to staff to hold a
ballot in December, which they then withdrew after staff at NHS
West Essex, covering Harlow, Bishop’s Stortford and Saffron Walden,
voted overwhelmingly against moving to a social enterprise.
Unite regional officer, Ian Maidlow said: ”We don’t think it was
a coincidence that the offer was withdrawn after the west Essex
vote. Management needs to stick by their original commitment for a
staff ballot– and there needs to be full public consultation on
this proposal.
”Health visiting numbers are already low in Essex. You could
have the bizarre situation where health visitors currently working
in partnership with children’s centres, would be involved in
bidding against each other to provide the same services. It does
not make sense.”
Unite’s call comes in the wake of the Department of Health’s
announcement last autumn 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 the two trusts are being asked to reconsider their
plans for a social enterprise, which are commercial organisations,
one step removed from the NHS, 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.
Ian Maidlow said: ”When talking to staff, management have used
‘John Lewis’ as a shining example of a social enterprise. We do not
consider that buying something in a department store is remotely
comparable to the provision of essential medical services in the
community.
”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 could also be severely eroded, or even
lost.
”We want to make the public aware of what a social enterprise
will actually mean for families and communities in Essex. Social
enterprises can’t be imposed by stealth. The people of this part of
Essex and the NHS staff involved deserve the widest possible
consultation.”
ENDS
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