A £1 billion contract!!3 Sep 2013 22:15
No question, why not invest as the upside after the government has now chosen to privatise is huge. With capita in place to support the sky is the limit.
Thousands of older patients across Cambridgeshire face being left worse off if increasing privatisation of the NHS continues, unions have claimed.
Protesters took their campaign to a meeting of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) at Huntingdon which is considering a bid for the provision of its adult and older people’s services in a contract which could be worth up to £1 billion. Potential contractors are expected to be named by the CCG at the end of the week but private health firm Circle, which won the controversial management of Hinchingbrooke Hospital, has confirmed it is bidding as part of a team involving Capita and the current provider CCS.
Members of the unions GMB, Unison and Unite took part in the lobby, along with Huw Jones and Daniel Zeichner, prospective Labour parliamentary candidates for South East Cambridgeshire and Cambridge.
Steve Sweeney, from the GMB and secretary of Huntingdonshire TUC, said: “This is a watershed moment in the NHS in Cambridgeshire.
“If there is a decision that awards this contract to the private sector there will be no going back.”
He said the change could leave elderly people needing care worse off.
Mr Jones said: “My concern is that the people in this room are going to be salami slicing the NHS, privatising it slice by slice.”
Mr Zeichner said: “The changes proposed by the CCG have drawn national attention, but there has been very limited information made available and very limited public debate.
“There are many, very serious as yet unanswered questions which the CCG needs to answer.”
But Dr Arnold Fertig, GP lead for the CCG’s older people’s programme, said improving care was a top priority: “The CCG’s over-riding objective is to improve outcomes and service quality for older people.
“The current procurement will encourage existing and new providers to think about how they can better integrate services in order to keep people as well as possible.”
He said: “Our pre-qualification stage of procurement closed at the end of July and those providers who have been successful in going forward to the next stage will be announced during the next week.”