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‘NHS privatisation train has not been derailed by Future Forum report’, says Unite

13 Jun 2011 04:13 PM

The NHS privatisation programme is still on track, despite protests by health professionals to the Future Forum ‘listening’ exercise, Unite, the largest union in the country, said yesterday (Monday, 13 June). 

Unite, which has 100,000 members in the health service, said that the NHS had been through an unprecedented year of uncertainty – but the report of the Future Forum, unveiled today, will do nothing to quell the concern of health professionals and patients. 

Unite said that the Future Forum had done some good work in exposing the flaws in the controversial Health and Social Care Bill, but the pace of privatisation had only been slowed, not discarded - which will not meet the concerns expressed by the Liberal Democrats at their spring conference. 

The recommendation that Monitor’s duty to promote ‘competition’ should be removed in favour of ‘choice’ for local people still left question marks about what this exactly means in relation to the role of the private sector in the NHS. 

Unite repeated its call for the bill to be scrapped  and that a commission of genuinely independent experts be set up to conduct a proper review of what is needed for the long-term needs of the NHS. 

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Note to news editors:

 For further information, please contact Unite communications officer, Shaun Noble on 07768 693940