Hundreds of contracts signed in 'biggest ever act of NHS privatisation': Labour says private contracts worth a quarter of a billion pounds have been signed this week
Contracts for almost 400 NHS services, worth a quarter of billion pounds, were signed this week resulting in the "biggest act of privatisation ever seen in the NHS", Labour's health spokesman Andy Burnham has said.
In a briefing before his speech to the Labour party conference, Burnham said he had "evidence of accelerating privatisation" – citing a rash of examples across England which he said showed the government was committed to a "market in healthcare".
Burnham pointed out that non-emergency ambulance services in the north-west would soon be run by the bus group Arriva and that Lancashire county council had awarded the contract to run patient advocacy groups to a private firm, Parkwood Healthcare.
However the "biggest privatisation" so far was in community services – those areas of healthcare offered outside of hospitals. Labour used freedom of information requests to survey England's NHS primary care trusts on the range and value of community services being offered to the private and voluntary sector under the government's "any qualified provider" policy.
In the first wave, 398 contracts were signed this week in eight NHS areas – including musculoskeletal services for back pain, adult hearing services in the community, wheelchair services for children and primary care psychological therapies for adults.
Labour says £262m of services have drawn bids from 37 private healthcare companies. In about a quarter of the cases – 110 times – the health trusts stated "they had no plans to tender before the government instruction".
Burnham said he was "against the market in the NHS, not private companies". He said the use of markets had seen "care being fragmented and services becoming disjointed". For example, in Lincolnshire six private providers compete to offer patients diagnostic tests as well as the NHS.
The shadow health secretary also highlighted the fact that "some private providers have failed to deliver the standard of service required, yet could be bidding for similar contracts in other parts of the country". He cited the case of Serco's out-of-hours doctor services in Cornwall, which had "falsified data" to the NHS raising "fundamental questions about the outsourcing of NHS services to the private sector".
Burnham said this was only the beginning. In 2013 the coalition will force another £750m of NHS services to be opened to competition from private companies and charities. The government argues that it has only put services out for "competition on quality not price" and if the policy is judged successful non-NHS bodies will be allowed to deliver more complicated clinical services in maternity and "home chemotherapy" from next year.
The coalition's Health and Social Care Act also in effect allows hospitals to treat as many private patients as NHS patients – raising fears that the "paying ill" may be able to jump the queue in healthcare. Burnham said the government had created a "financial climate that will incentivise hospitals to look at the new rules on private patients as a source of much-needed income".
Labour said it had examined hospital trust papers – and found a number planning to increase income by attracting paying patients. Buckinghamshire healthcare trust, which provides care to over half a million patients, says it aims to "double its private income over the next year". The Chelsea and Westminster hospital trust admits there is "considerable scope to ramp up its private patient work". Even in Burnham's own constituency his local hospital in Wrightington was "establishing a new private patient unit".
Burnham said he would revive Labour's 2009 plan that NHS organisations were to be the service's preferred provider of care. This policy collapsed after a legal challenge by private companies just before the last election. However, the shadow health secretary said that in government Labour would "strip out the competition oversight" from the economic regulator Monitor.
"We have taken legal advice from a senior QC that if you build the system around NHS agreements you can insulate the system from competition law. Healthcare is essentially a public service and EU member states can protect public services in that way."
In his speech to the party, Burnham said the "next Labour government will repeal Cameron's [Health and Social Care] Act. We will stop the sell-off, put patients before profits, restore the N in NHS."
Burnham admitted that in office Labour had gone too far in promoting competition in the health service. He told the conference that "while [Labour] brought waiting lists down to record lows, with the help of the private sector, at times we let the market in too far. Some tell me markets are the only way forward. My answer is simple: markets deliver fragmentation; the future demands integration."
He also said the party had signed off on some "PFI deals [that] were poor value for money" and "at times, care of older people simply wasn't good enough".
Sources close to the Tory health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, said Labour was being disingenuous about its role in promoting competition in the NHS – with the party introducing market-based reforms almost a decade ago. "Burnham is promising another bill to replace the existing structures. That's a Labour promise of massive upheaval in the system again." The Guardian
Contracts for almost 400 NHS services, worth a quarter of billion pounds, were signed this week resulting in the "biggest act of privatisation ever seen in the NHS", Labour's health spokesman Andy Burnham has said.
In a briefing before his speech to the Labour party conference, Burnham said he had "evidence of accelerating privatisation" – citing a rash of examples across England which he said showed the government was committed to a "market in healthcare".
Burnham pointed out that non-emergency ambulance services in the north-west would soon be run by the bus group Arriva and that Lancashire county council had awarded the contract to run patient advocacy groups to a private firm, Parkwood Healthcare.
However the "biggest privatisation" so far was in community services – those areas of healthcare offered outside of hospitals. Labour used freedom of information requests to survey England's NHS primary care trusts on the range and value of community services being offered to the private and voluntary sector under the government's "any qualified provider" policy.
In the first wave, 398 contracts were signed this week in eight NHS areas – including musculoskeletal services for back pain, adult hearing services in the community, wheelchair services for children and primary care psychological therapies for adults.
Labour says £262m of services have drawn bids from 37 private healthcare companies. In about a quarter of the cases – 110 times – the health trusts stated "they had no plans to tender before the government instruction".
Burnham said he was "against the market in the NHS, not private companies". He said the use of markets had seen "care being fragmented and services becoming disjointed". For example, in Lincolnshire six private providers compete to offer patients diagnostic tests as well as the NHS.
The shadow health secretary also highlighted the fact that "some private providers have failed to deliver the standard of service required, yet could be bidding for similar contracts in other parts of the country". He cited the case of Serco's out-of-hours doctor services in Cornwall, which had "falsified data" to the NHS raising "fundamental questions about the outsourcing of NHS services to the private sector".
Burnham said this was only the beginning. In 2013 the coalition will force another £750m of NHS services to be opened to competition from private companies and charities. The government argues that it has only put services out for "competition on quality not price" and if the policy is judged successful non-NHS bodies will be allowed to deliver more complicated clinical services in maternity and "home chemotherapy" from next year.
The coalition's Health and Social Care Act also in effect allows hospitals to treat as many private patients as NHS patients – raising fears that the "paying ill" may be able to jump the queue in healthcare. Burnham said the government had created a "financial climate that will incentivise hospitals to look at the new rules on private patients as a source of much-needed income".
Labour said it had examined hospital trust papers – and found a number planning to increase income by attracting paying patients. Buckinghamshire healthcare trust, which provides care to over half a million patients, says it aims to "double its private income over the next year". The Chelsea and Westminster hospital trust admits there is "considerable scope to ramp up its private patient work". Even in Burnham's own constituency his local hospital in Wrightington was "establishing a new private patient unit".
Burnham said he would revive Labour's 2009 plan that NHS organisations were to be the service's preferred provider of care. This policy collapsed after a legal challenge by private companies just before the last election. However, the shadow health secretary said that in government Labour would "strip out the competition oversight" from the economic regulator Monitor.
"We have taken legal advice from a senior QC that if you build the system around NHS agreements you can insulate the system from competition law. Healthcare is essentially a public service and EU member states can protect public services in that way."
In his speech to the party, Burnham said the "next Labour government will repeal Cameron's [Health and Social Care] Act. We will stop the sell-off, put patients before profits, restore the N in NHS."
Burnham admitted that in office Labour had gone too far in promoting competition in the health service. He told the conference that "while [Labour] brought waiting lists down to record lows, with the help of the private sector, at times we let the market in too far. Some tell me markets are the only way forward. My answer is simple: markets deliver fragmentation; the future demands integration."
He also said the party had signed off on some "PFI deals [that] were poor value for money" and "at times, care of older people simply wasn't good enough".
Sources close to the Tory health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, said Labour was being disingenuous about its role in promoting competition in the NHS – with the party introducing market-based reforms almost a decade ago. "Burnham is promising another bill to replace the existing structures. That's a Labour promise of massive upheaval in the system again." The Guardian
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