Pregnant women living in the borough of Wirral, northwest England, face being put under the care of a private healthcare company rather than the care of the NHS.
The local Primary Care Trust (PCT) has approved an application from the One to One company to provide a ‘community midwifery service’.
Wirral Labour group leader Steve Foulkes called the move disturbing. He said the ‘sinister’ plan was ‘privatisation by the back door’.
Community midwifery services are currently provided by NHS hospitals including Arrowe Park and Liverpool Women’s Hospital, but under this new application, the new company would look after women throughout their pregnancy and be responsible for delivering babies at home.
The service was put in place under an ‘any willing provider’ contract by the government.
Health unions have stated that they are watching this agreement closely to see what effects it will have on existing NHS staff members.
Francis Day-Stirk of the Royal College of Midwives said: ‘The RCM has no objections to relatively small-scale provision of services by non-NHS providers.
‘However, we would be deeply concerned if a tendering of services out to a private organisation led to job losses among NHS staff.’
One to One has already carried out a pilot scheme in Wirral where it looked after 150 women with a focus on deprived areas and teenage motherhood.
l One in five people in Wales are delaying having dental work carried out because of the cost of treatment.
The findings of the Adult Dental Survey, which is carried out every ten years, also found that 22 per cent of people in Wales said the type of treatment they had was influenced by cost.
NHS dental charges in Wales have been frozen since 2007 and are considerably lower than in England.
But the results of the just-published, full 2009 survey, suggest that even modest charges can prevent people seeking treatment and can widen dental health inequalities.
The findings also confirm research by the British Dental Association (BDA) carried out earlier this year in England, which found economic concerns are leading patients to cancel dental appointments and defer treatments they need.
l The Advertising Standards Authority has launched an investigation into a Department of Health pamphlet promoting the Health and Social Care Bill during the government’s so-called ‘listening exercise’.
The pamphlet – aimed at patients and titled ‘Working together for a stronger NHS’ – was published earlier this month to explain the rationale behind the government’s NHS ‘reforms’ and has received a number of complaints over its suggesting that the NHS will perform better if it has more competition between healthcare providers, including private companies.
