HEALTH unions Unison, Unite and the GMB have scornfully condemned the attempts of the Tory-LibDem coalition to involve the trade unions in new talks over the Health and Social Care NHS privatisation Bill.
Tory-LibDem coalition leaders Cameron, Clegg and Health Secretary Lansley urged the unions to ‘join the debate’ on the discredited Bill.
The trio made their appeals at Frimley Park Hospital in Surrey.
Cameron told assembled media alongside an audience of selected health workers: ‘If we want to keep the NHS free at the point of use we have to make it more efficient – sticking with the status quo is not going to work.’
He said that over the next two months ministers would be meeting with the public and NHS workers ‘to explain the reforms and to see if improvements could be made’.
He said the government has enlisted Professor Steve Field, former chairman of the Royal College of GPs, to head a panel in the ‘listening exercise’.
The GMB said: ‘The Conservatives cannot be trusted with the NHS, adding the ‘extended consultation is about selling the Bill to the public and not listening to our health professionals.’
Rachael Maskell, said: ‘At every stage and on every day of the bill Committee, both parties of government were implored to not go ahead with this destructive bill.
‘One hundred times they were asked to improve this bill and one hundred times they said no.
‘Are they really going to hear and act, as well as listen, now?’
She added: ‘Quite simply, this bill cannot be saved.’
Unison North West Head of Health, Paul Foley said: ‘Our members, who work on the front line of NHS services, have long campaigned against the Bill, they see the Bill as fundamentally flawed and destructive to NHS provision, and it should be abandoned.’
Last month a resolution at a BMA Special Representative Council meeting calling for the bill to be withdrawn was passed unanimously, but yesterday, BMA Chairman of Council Dr Hamish Meldrum openly went against the policy.
He said: ‘We see it as positive that the government is committed to listening.’ (see editorial page 6)
The RCM said ‘It is right to stop and reflect.’
The RCN said: ‘We hope that this two month pause will be used to reflect in detail on some of the problems nurses and health professionals have raised.’
