General Secretary of the UK's largest health union warns against privatisation of health services
by Nicola Grant – Regional Spokesperson of The Workers Party
The General Secretary of the UK's largest health union has warned that privatisation of health services risks progress promised by the Labour Party.
Speaking about private firms delivering NHS services, Unison leader Christina McAnea said ‘no one should be making profit from running public services’. The Unison leader also said Labour risks derailing any progress made in the early days of the new government.
Ms McAnea warned that Labour Ministers are planning to transfer thousands of low-paid workers out of the NHS by allowing hospital bosses to set up their own companies to save cash. The Workers Party has long said that staff at private firms delivering NHS services rarely get a good deal. Our experience of privatisation in hospitals confirms this.
The Bengoa report which has political buy-in in the Stormont Coalition supports the widespread use of the independent sector, which is privatisation by another name, and also follows Bengoa in advocating for more use of the voluntary sector.
We will soon have to pay for ambulance call outs if the private sector and politicians have their way. Whilst we can all agree that the voluntary sector does great work within communities, their role should be ‘as well as’, not ‘instead of’.
Some of our politicians are sleepwalking into the wholesale privatisation of our national health service. Others are wide awake and are fully across every detail; those are the ones following their own political agendas rather than meeting the needs of their voters.
It is now time for our politicians to do the right thing and fight to retain our National Health Service free at the point of need, and free from all forms of privatisation and fragmentation. Our citizens deserve nothing less.