Government forces Hackney NHS to put GP services out to tender
Keep our NHS public supporters, Hackney
Local people will stage a demonstration 6-7pm this evening on the steps of the Town Hall in advance of the Council’s health scrutiny meeting. Campaigners are seeking to highlight – and hope to stop – the privatisation of the borough’s family doctor surgeries.
This evening’s meeting sets out the process to be used for selecting providers for two new GP-led Health Centre schemes planned by NHS City & Hackney (the PCT).
In a statement the PCT said, “The Department of Health [ie the Government] requires that PCTs tender services on the open market in order to extend the range of providers and the choices available to patients.”
Plans to sell off two new GP-led Health Centres have been in place since last summer, but Hackney’s Primary Care Trust (PCT) has not yet announced who they will sell them to. Campaigners suspect they will simply sell the contracts to the highest bidders.
Bronwen Handyside, secretary of the local Keep Our NHS Public campaign, hopes they will sway the PCT’s decision in favour of selling to local doctors trusted by the community.
“Government maintains that it doesn’t matter who provides the care, but it does,” said Ms Handyside.
She claims that providing healthcare for profit will result in worse working conditions for doctor, nurses and other staff. This is turn may result lower quality of care for patients.
Ms Handyside believes the majority of the people in Hackney would be against privatisation if they knew about it. “But [the PCT] haven’t consulted with the people of Hackney,” she said.
Hackney and City PCT says it has followed Government guidance in tendering the contracts.
Diane Abbott, MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington, said she hoped the PCT will listen to the campaigners.
“I have received assurances from [the PCT] about the quality of the service and working conditions for doctors. But I am aware of the public’s concerns around these issues and I share them,” she said.
More here.