ONE HUNDRED ambulance workers and supporters from Manchester descended on parliament yesterday to demonstrate against the transfer of the patient transport service (PTS) from the NHS to privateer Arriva.
Unison warned that the privatisation will lead to a poorer quality service for vulnerable patients and act as a blueprint for cuts elsewhere.
Unison member Paul Flynn said: ‘We work for the Patient Transport Service in the Manchester area and we are devastated at the news that our service is to be privatised next April.
‘The Arriva bus company is to be the new employer.
‘There was never any profit made by our service and everything extra was ploughed back into the service.
‘We had shared resources which supported the paramedical and emergency side of the ambulance service.’
Unison member David Ward added: ‘If there was a civil contingency, like the bombing in Manchester, PTS is a backup for looking after the walking wounded while emergency services are looking after the critically injured.’
Cuts are already a serious threat to ambulance services across the country, warned the union, noting that the Coalition is calling for cuts of £50m to the ambulance service over the next five years – £10m a year!
Despite a massive public backlash, East Midlands Ambulance Service plans to close 70 ambulance stations spread across the region, replacing them with 13 larger ‘hubs’ in a bid to save cash.
Dave Prentis, General Secretary of Unison, said: ‘It is a disgrace.
‘Surely patients must come before profits, but in Tory Britain cuts come first.
‘The NHS topped private company Arriva on the quality of the service they were offering to vulnerable patients, but they lost the contract on price.
‘Across the county the NHS and patients are losing out because of government demand for cuts.’
Unison has collected more than 14,000 signatures to a petition calling for Manchester’s Ambulance Patient Transport Service to remain in the NHS and to reverse privatisation plans.
The petition was carried by wheelchair to the Department of Health yesterday.
Manchester’s PTS service is also part of the plan for emergency situations within the Greater Manchester Area which is defined as high risk by Central Government.
Arriva are due to take over the running of the service from March 2013.
Arriva’s private ambulance enterprise in Leicestershire, ‘Ambuline’, was inspected by the Care and Quality Commission in September 2012 and found to be failing to meet standards in every measure of the assessment, from infection control to patient care, raising further concerns around the company’s suitability to run the service.
