Unite is calling for the potential privatisation of cervical screening services to be suspended, following reports that the service is “in meltdown”. Used by thousands of women each year,…Read more…
‘Uncertain future’
Well-founded fears are being expressed about the possible privatisation of cervical screening services used by thousands of women in England every year – which we say is the latest manifestation of…Read more…
Treated with contempt
Both NHS staff and patients are being treated with contempt, as the lurch toward privatisation continues unabated, and NHS bosses mismanage what little funding the health service has in the midst of…Read more…
Patient safety threat
A New Year campaign has been launched by Unite to stop the pathology services in Kent being outsourced to a ‘profit hungry’ private company. Unite, which has 100,000 members in the health…Read more…
‘Vigorous’ case
Unite will be making ‘a vigorous and well-argued response’ to the consultation on the future of wholly owned subsidiaries (WOSs) set up by NHS trusts and designed to avoid paying tax. Unite,…Read more…
Wholly owned subsidiaries threat
Labour conference delegates were reminded of the clear and present dangers posed to the NHS through Tory privatisation by Unite today (September 26). First time speaker and Unite member Simon…Read more…
‘Get a grip’ call
Bosses of two separate NHS trusts, which are facing strike action next week, have defied guidance from NHS Improvement to pause the creation of new wholly owned subsidiaries. Unite yesterday…Read more…
The battle for York
York has become the latest battleground in the campaign to stop NHS trusts outsourcing staff to avoid paying tax. Unite is balloting its more than 200 estates and maintenance members employed…Read more…
‘Profit-hungry tentacles’
How the private sector has extended its profit-hungry tentacles across the NHS hoovering up lucrative contracts should come under the scrutiny of MPs when parliament returns in the autumn. The…Read more…
NHS ‘not up for auction’
Virgin Care has hoovered up nearly £2bn of health service contracts over the last five years, new analysis that provides a worrying insight into the creeping privatisation of the NHS shows. In…Read more…
As private health firms circle like sharks…
While many may have cheered the departure of Jeremy Hunt, the contentious health secretary who presided over years of NHS cuts and staff pay freezes, critics say his successor Matt Hancock looks to…Read more…
Win against NHS privatisation
The NHS’ 70th birthday on Thursday (July 5) wasn’t the only thing the health service had to celebrate last week. Only one day later on Friday (July 6), an NHS trust scrapped plans to outsource…Read more…
Squeezing the life from our NHS
Keep Our NHS Public has been one of the most used slogans for years as unions, patient groups and politicians campaign to end the privatisation of health services. Rallies and protests are…Read more…
Scrap outsourcing plans call
In the latest intervention in a Unite dispute against NHS outsourcing, Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham today (July 4) responded to Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh NHS Foundation Trust’s decision to…Read more…
NHS outsourcing fight
Unite is to step up strike action at the Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh NHS Foundation Trust, in a dispute concerning outsourcing. The workers who include electricians, plumbers, fitters,…Read more…
‘Destabilising’
Doctors in Unite (DiU) has called on health secretary Jeremy Hunt to pull the plug on GP at Hand, an online video GP consultation service that critics have said is defunding already overstretched…Read more…
Pay justice fight
Thousands of low-paid health staff are not eligible for wages rises under an impending NHS pay deal because their work has been outsourced. About 1,600 Barts Health workers, including porters,…Read more…
Privatisation plans scrapped
Unite and other health unions celebrated a victory against NHS privatisation at the weekend after a Bristol Trust said it would scrap plans to transfer about 850 non-medical staff to a private…Read more…
NHS privatisation is ‘killing people’
Hundreds of thousands of NHS campaigners will converge in London on Saturday (February 3) to demand the Tories fix the embattled health service. In response to the unprecedented and growing…Read more…
The big questions
As the NHS celebrates its 70th birthday this year, the challenges facing it are unprecedented – provision is drowning under the weight of chronic underfunding just when the health service needs it…Read more…