Hewitt's offer to private health bidders revealed in secret
papers

· Contracts will allow firms to take over NHS buildings
· Rules to bar poaching of staff have been eased
John Carvel, social affairs editor
Thursday September 22, 2005

Guardian, 22.9.05

Private sector bidders for contracts worth £3bn to diagnose
and treat NHS patients are being wooed with the prospect of
a permanent place in England's healthcare market.

The deal was advertised in the official journal of the EU
soon after Patricia Hewitt took over as health secretary at
the start of Tony Blair's third term. Companies expressing
an interest in bidding were sent more than 200 pages of
documents setting out what would be expected of them. The
confidential documents, dated September 8, show that the
primary purpose of the contracts would be to help create a
"sustainable" market in the provision of elective care to
NHS patients and encourage competition between NHS and
private providers. Some private companies will be given an
opportunity to take over NHS buildings and equipment.

That appears to run counter to the pledge given by the
former health secretary Alan Milburn when he first mooted
the idea of private treatment centres to reduce the NHS
waiting list. He insisted that the companies doing this
business must not poach staff from the NHS.

The documents suggest that in Birmingham all surgical
facilities at a new NHS treatment centre will be handed over
to the company which wins the contract for up to 9,500
operations a year in general surgery, gynaecology, urology
and other specialisms. Hamish Brown, breast cancer surgeon
and chairman of the hospital's medical staff committee,
said: "The consultants and staff have put an enormous amount
of work and time into this project, to provide state of the
art health care for what is one of the most deprived
populations in the country.

"I doubt that will be a priority for the independent sector.
They will be doing the easy work in a ready-made facility
that would otherwise have cost them a fortune, at the same
time as the hospital loses this income. It stinks."

Other contracts include plans to turn Ravenscourt Park
hospital in west London from a public sector facility under
Hammersmith Hospitals NHS trust into a "surgical hub" for a
network of diagnostic and treatment centres throughout
London north of the Thames.

Part of the New Forest Lymington hospital in Hampshire - a
PFI scheme that is due to open next year - will be leased to
a private company to carry out 5,000 operations a year. The
prospectus for the West Midlands said: "This scheme is for
the independent sector to build, create and manage an
orthopaedic centre for excellence on the site of Rugby St
Cross hospital." It involves "a significant volume of
transferred activity and may involve secondment of existing
NHS staff." Like many others the West Yorkshire scheme
"involves a significant volume of transferred activity and
may involve secondment of NHS staff".

Rules laid down by Mr Milburn and his successor, John Reid,
to prevent the poaching of NHS staff have been eased.
"Providers will only be prohibited from recruiting NHS staff
in specialities facing workforce shortages." Doctors and
nurses with full-time NHS contracts will also be allowed to
do extra shifts in the private treatment centres, once they
have fulfilled their NHS obligations.

Companies winning the contracts will be expected to provide
performance bonds worth between £1.5m and £17.5m to insure
the government against any of them defaulting on the contract.

Paul Miller, chairman of the BMA's consultants' committee,
said: "I believe the government when it it says there is no
intention of making NHS patients pay. But we are moving
quickly towards a position where a lot of NHS staff will
have to work for private firms, or lose their jobs. This is
being done without any real debate. Ms Hewitt talks about
putting new management into failing hospitals. I would not
be surprised if that came from these private firms.

"We are moving quickly to a position where a lot of the NHS
staff are employed by the private sector."
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