NHS Privatisation Steam Rolling Ahead As Hospital Sold On Friday 13th

Skeptics of the argument that the government’s Health And Care Services Act 2012 was all about the take over of healthcare in the NHS by private companies, will need to re-think their naivety as the sale of an NHS hospital to private healthcare company SERCO took place on Friday 13th July 2012.

The date of the signing of this deal to remove Newmarket Hospital from NHS control and running of the hospital, has not gone unnoticed by critics and supporters of the NHS.

Nearly £4,500,000,000 of the NHS has been put out to tender this year, as the scale of private sector involvement in our NHS grows.

Writing in his ‘Green Benches’ blog on the same day Dr Eoine Clarke reports:

“In just the last 3 weeks nearly £2.5bn has been put out to private tender. For example, last week Virgin secured the £44m contract to gain control of children's services in NHS Devon. Over a 5 year period, this contract if extended would be worth £220m (minimum). In addition, new contracts recently tendered include:

Hillingdon MSK     £200m
Surrey Downs Community Services    £125m
Pathology E & W Midlands    £550m
Nottingham Treatment Centre     £42m
Community Health in Gloucs.    £500m
Patient Transport Bournemouth    £19m
NW Personal Social Care Services     £300m

But today, the most sinister of all developments emerged when Serco signed their first contract to gain sole control of an entire NHS Hospital. Suffolk NHS have handed over a £160m contract to Serco to run Newmarket Hospital. As of midnight it is no longer an NHS Hospital and is now privately run.”

This must also be read in conjunction with the fact that Branson’s Virgincare is also running numerous NHS healthcare services around the country, including 12 GP practices on Merseyside and Devon's Children's Services; for profit! This is only the beginning of Branson's aim of running a huge majority of NHS healthcare services, again for profit.

Further, several hospitals are already being allowed to go to the financial wall by Andrew Lansley, which will then mean he will put them up for private tendering and control by a private company. More and more hospitals will leave the NHS and be in private hands along with the nurses, doctors and clerical staff. Employment by the NHS will shrink dramataically as private healthcare companies eventually subsume the whole of the NHS hospital estate.

The news of the Serco take-over of Newmarket Hospital was reported in the local press, the Newmarket Journal:

“The hospital is part of the community health services currently provided by Suffolk Community Healthcare, which will be formally transferred to multi-national service company Serco by the autumn in a three-year deal worth £159.9 million.

The change is in line with guidance from the Department of Health which stipulates that all primary care trusts, like NHS Suffolk, will no longer directly provide community services and will buy the services instead.”

To no one's surprise this monumental sale of an NHS hospital to a private company which runs prisons, security and arms provision for the government and has multi - billion pound contracts for governments around the world; was not reported in any TV news broadcasts or national newspapers as far as Unionsafety is aware.

Source: Green Benches / Newmarket Journal

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