The NHS bill is ‘a charter for private profit at the expense of
patients care’ says Unite
19 January 2011
The NHS bill unveiled today (Wednesday 19 January) is a charter
for private profit at the expense of patient care, Unite, the
largest union in the country, said.
Unite was commenting in the wake of reports that the Tories have
been bankrolled to the tune of £750,000 in donations from private
healthcare firms since David Cameron became leader in 2005.
Unite said that the Health and Social Care bill – the largest
piece of health legislation since the NHS’ inception in 1948 –
would make services for patients become more remote as the planned
GP consortia, due to control most of the NHS budget from 2013,
became fewer in number, but serving a wider area.
Unite’s national officer for health, David Fleming, said: ”It is
clear that one of the biggest influences on Tory ideology regarding
health policy has been the massive and insidious lobbying by
the private healthcare companies, which have opened their
chequebooks for David Cameron big-time.
”How can the 68 year old women in Birmingham waiting for a hip
replacement operation trust that the Tories and their Lib-Dem
allies have her best interests at heart when it is the private
healthcare companies, greedy for profit, who have the ear of the
prime minister and his health secretary, Andrew Lansley? This is
crunch time for MPs to decide which side they are on.
”The bill is a charter for private profit at the expense of
patient care and should be strongly resisted. The public - and that
includes those on the moderate wing of the Conservative party -
needs to wake up to the scale of the changes proposed.
”The GP consortia, the supposed vanguard of this so-called
reform programme, will be juggling financial decisions with the
help of the private healthcare companies they will buy-in, versus
the needs of their patients – this is a stark conflict of interest.
Patients should always come first.”
Earlier this week in a letter to the Times, Unite and five other
health organisations, warned that: ‘The sheer scale of the
ambitious and costly reform programme, and the pace of change,
whilst at the same time being tasked with making £20 billion of
savings, is extremely risky and potentially disastrous.’
ENDS
Notes to news editors:
For further information, please contact, Shaun Noble, Unite’s
communications officer on 07768 693940
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