Now it begins;
UHands
Off
It’s our NHS.
Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Clinical Commissioning Group
are putting out to tender £1 Billion of medical services in their area to private
providers. This will cover ‘end of life care’ amongst other provision for the
elderly.
It’s a 5 year contract worth £160 million a year for 5 years with
a 2 year extension option.
Currently there are 6 separate contracts with the NHS, 4
hospital trusts, a mental health trust and a community services trust. The new
contract is so large and the current suppliers so diverse that they will not be
able to compete with the multi-nationals likely to win the contract.
Virgin Care which already has a £450 million pound contract
in Surrey is eyeing up the profits, as is Circle which runs Hinchinbrooke
Hospital and Serco which was recently exposed as providing inadequate GP cover
and lying about it on it’s out of hours contract in Cornwall.
According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies and the
Nuffield Trust, the £100 Billion NHS budget now bleeds over £8.7 Billion in
private contracts.
So what happens to the existing providers when the new
contract is signed? Do the hospitals shut down, or do the new private bosses
come in and take over the public assets that we used to own, using them to milk
the profits without paying for the facilities.
In other words we pay, they profit.
I’m approaching ‘end of life’ care. I don’t want to get it
from Richard Branson’s Virgin, Serco or G4S.
Neil Harris
(a don’t stop till you drop production)
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