‘NHS hospitals and their contents – including hundreds of thousands of beds, scanners, X-ray equipment, incubators, bedpans, syringes, operating theatre equipment, pacemakers, surgical instruments and stethoscopes – are up for sale as a result of the government’s Health and Social Care Bill,’ warned Unison yesterday.
The union added in a statement: ‘The Bill paves the way for the privatisation of the NHS with big multinational private health companies such as Care UK, Bupa and United Healthcare, first in line for the bidding.
‘The massive sale is likely to clear the national debt and enable the government to re-introduce tax breaks for the super-rich and to make this year a bumper bonus bonanza for banking bosses.
‘When the NHS went up for sale at midnight it sparked a bidding frenzy with private companies eager to get a piece of the NHS on the cheap.
‘Doctors, nurses, patients, MPs, health experts and unions, including Unison are outraged at the plans.’
Unison General secretary, Dave Prentis said: ‘The Health and Social Care Bill was always a recipe for privatisation.
‘Taking the cap off the number of private patients a hospital can treat, tipped the balance forever in favour of those people with the money to jump the queue and pay for treatment.
‘The NHS was once the envy of the world, it is being treated more like a bargain basement lot.
‘Handing over £80bn of taxpayers’ money to GPs was a terrible risk and we now know that while private companies are picking up bargains, NHS patients are paying a heavy price.’
Meanwhile, more than two thirds of GPs back amendments to the Health Bill proposed by the Liberal Democrats and Labour, a GP poll revealed yesterday.
The poll of 303 GPs revealed widespread discontent over the Bill and confirmed support from GPs for the decisions made at the BMA’s special representative meeting (SRM) on March 15.
It found that 38 per cent of GPs are considering retiring early to avoid the impending NHS reforms.
But in a sign that the push for amendments to the Health Bill is gathering momentum, GPs backed a series of changes to the Bill supported by Liberal Democrats.
Nearly two-thirds of GPs backed a Labour call for parts of the Bill that set out plans for ‘any willing provider’ to run NHS services to be dropped, and likewise on the plans to give regulator Monitor powers to enforce competition in the NHS.
A total of 75 per cent of GPs support the Liberal Democrats’ call for commissioning ‘to remain a public function’ to ensure it is not subcontracted to the private sector.
The party also called for private providers only to be allowed to bid for NHS services when there is no risk of ‘cherry picking’. A total of 74 per cent of GPs backed this.
