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UNISON calls on South West Liberal Democrats to prevent demise of the NHS 14/03/11

UNISON South West Region has written to all Liberal Democrat MPs in the South West Region calling on them to use their influence in the Coalition Government to prevent the unjustified and damaging market based approach, set out in Andrew Lansley's Health and Social Care bill, criticised by delegates at the weekend's Liberal Democrat Conference.

The letter also draws attention to the specific proposals to transfer up to 20,000 NHS frontline staff out of the NHS, and place them in new independent Social Enterprise Trusts, which the union fears will be a stepping stone to privatisation.  Each Social Enterprise Trust will need a new management board and senior officers, increasing management costs and bureaucracy.  The South West has a higher number of proposed Social Enterprise Trusts than any other region in the country.

Joanne Kaye, Regional Secretary for UNISON in the South West, said:

"In our letter we acknowledge the intentions of Liberal Democrats in entering this coalition were honourable, and showed a genuine wish to temper the worst excesses of a Conservative Government.  But the impact is not being felt where it matters and we applaud those delegates at the Liberal Democrat Conference who opposed the direction of travel of this Government.

"Social Enterprise Trusts pose a very real threat to our NHS.  They have only been given a limited shelf life and our belief is that after two years services they will be put out to the market for private companies to bid.  Only last week, staff opposing the Social Enterprise Trust in Gloucestershire were threatened with open tendering as the only alternative.

"Delegates at the Conference showed bravery and commitment to our NHS.  Social Enterprise Trusts which began as a Labour policy, were seized on by the Conservatives and their impact will be amplified by the new Bill.  We urge the Liberal Democrats in the South West to join with us in opposing them and show their real distinctive political voice."

Please see letter below for full deatils.

The letter has been sent to:-

  • Annette Brooke - North Dorset and Mid Poole
  • Don Foster - Bath
  • Andrew George - St Ives
  • Stephen Gilbert - St Austell and Newquay
  • Duncan Hames - Chippenham
  • Nick Harvey - North Devon
  • David Heath - Somerton and Frome
  • Martin Horwood - Cheltenham
  • David Laws - Yeovil
  • Tessa Munt - Wells
  • Dan Rogerson - North Cornwall
  • Adrian Sanders - Torbay
  • Steve Webb - Thornbury and Yate
  • Stephen Williams - Bristol West

For further information contact Joanne Kaye, UNISON South West Regional Secretary c/o 01823 285318

Letter To: All Liberal Democrat Members of Parliament, South West Region

14 March 2011 

Dear South West Lib Dem MP (see notes to editor above for individual addressees)

I am writing to you as Regional Secretary for UNISON South West following the decision of your conference to seek changes to the Health and Social Care Bill currently making its way through Parliament.

UNISON welcomes the motion's central tenet that reform of the NHS can be achieved without adopting the damaging and unjustified market-based approach that is proposed by this Government.  In the South West we are facing the transfer of up to 20,000 staff out of frontline primary care services in the NHS, into new Social Enterprise Trusts (SETs).  The scale of this in the South West is unprecedented compared to other regions - provider services in seven Primary Care Trusts have opted to do this, compared with other regions of the country, where only one or two PCTs have chosen this option.  SETs are proposed in the following areas:

Gloucestershire

Bristol

Swindon (including Adult Social Care)

Bath and NE Somerset (including Adult Social Care)

North Somerset

Plymouth

Cornwall

We have asked for staff, who are seen to be key stakeholders in SETs to be given a vote on this - this was refused, although some Trusts have now relented, even if these 'votes' are taking place after advertisements for the Chair and Chief Executive posts have gone out!  We have asked for Local Authorities to hold a referendum on this issue - none have yet agreed.  SETs will be less accountable to their communities, increase bureaucracy and management costs by the need to create seven new management boards that do not exist at this time, remove accountability of local services, especially social care which will be also transferred in the case of Bath and North East Somerset and Swindon.

Staff have further reason to fear as this week, in Cornwall, the commissioner is to severely cut funding to social enterprises running Learning Disability Services and staff will lose access to the NHS pension scheme as well as seeing their pay slashed, in an area where wages are already low.  This only serves to heighten the fear and anxiety of those staff who deliver primary care services in Health Centres and Community Hospitals across the region.

SETs also face an uncertain future - we have been informed that they will have a two year contract - and our questions about the period beyond this remain unanswered.  However, when pressing for answers, Gloucestershire PCT informed us this week that 'the only alternative' was to put these services out to open tender, to use precisely that unjustified and damaging market-based approach envisaged by your party's motion.

We know that Liberal Democrats entered a coalition Government, because they believed they would make a difference, that they would temper the aims of a Conservative Government and that they would offer a new and distinctive voice in British politics.  This is your opportunity to do precisely that.  The introduction of Social Enterprise Trusts and the concept of 'Any Willing Provider' were designed by a Labour Government and have been seized upon by Andrew Lansley in designing the Health and Social Care Bill.  Please will you take the following steps:-

a)    Write to the Department of Health and ask for the Social Enterprise Trust programme to be halted in the South West and to allow time for full public consultation on this in all areas.  Last week we held street stalls across the South West and without exception, members of the public had no idea about the proposals to remove large sections of the NHS in this way and were extremely concerned.

b)    Agree to meet with a delegation of NHS staff on 1 April 2011 in your constituency surgery as part of the All Together for the NHS day organized by the TUC.

Thank you for taking the time to read this.  I look forward to receiving your reply.

Yours sincerely

Joanne Kaye

Regional Secretary

UNISON South West

 

Details of Motion passed at LibDem Conference on Saturday 12 March 2011

Motion carried with amendments: Updating the NHS: Personal and Local

Sat, 12 Mar 2011

Spring Conference 2011: Lines 6-15 deleted, Amendments 1 and 2 carried, Main motion carried as amended.

Twelve conference representatives Mover: Paul Burstow Summation: Cllr Richard Kemp  Conference believes that the NHS is an integral part of a liberal society, reflecting the social solidarity of shared access to collective healthcare, and a shared responsibility to use resources effectively to deliver better health.  Conference welcomes our Coalition Government's commitment to the founding principles of the NHS: available to all, free at the point of use, and based on need, not the ability to pay.  Conference welcomes much of the vision for the NHS set out in the Government's White Paper, Equity and Excellence: Liberating the NHS which commits the Government to an NHS that:

i) Is genuinely centred on patients and carers.

ii) Achieves quality and outcomes that are among the best in the world.

iii) Refuses to tolerate unsafe and substandard care.

iv) Puts clinicians in the driving seat and sets hospitals and providers free to innovate, with stronger incentives to adopt best practice.

v) Is more transparent, with clearer accountabilities for quality and results.

vi) Is more efficient and dynamic, with a radically smaller national, regional and local bureaucracy.

vii) Gives citizens a greater say in how the NHS is run.

Conference particularly welcomes the proposals to introduce real democratic legitimacy and local accountability into the NHS for the first time in almost forty years by:

a)    Extending the powers of local authorities to enable effective scrutiny of any provider of any taxpayer funded health services.

b)     Giving local authorities the role of leading on improving the strategic coordination of commissioning across the NHS, social care, and related childrens' and public health services through councillor led Health and Wellbeing Boards.

c)     Creating Health Watch to act as a local consumer champion for patients and to ensure that local patients are heard on a national level.

d)     Returning public health duty to local government by ensuring that the majority of public health services will now be commissioned by Local Authorities from their ring-fenced public health budget.

Conference recognises however that all of the above policies and aspirations can be achieved without adopting the damaging and unjustified market-based approach that is proposed.  Conference regrets that some of the proposed reforms have never been Liberal Democrat policy, did not feature in our manifesto or in the agreed Coalition Programme, which instead called for an end to large-scale top-down reorganisations.  Conference therefore calls on Liberal Democrats in Parliament to amend the Health Bill to provide for:

I) More democratically accountable commissioning.

II) A much greater degree of co-terminously between local authorities and commissioning areas.

III) No decision about the spending of NHS funds to be made in private and without proper consultation, as can take place by the proposed GP consortia.

IV) The complete ruling out of any competition based on price to prevent loss-leading corporate providers under-cutting NHS tariffs, and to ensure that healthcare providers 'compete' on quality of care.

V) New private providers to be allowed only where there is no risk of 'cherry picking' which would destabilise or undermine the existing NHS service relied upon for emergencies and complex cases, and where the needs of equity, research and training are met.

VI) NHS commissioning being retained as a public function in full compliance with the Human Rights Act and Freedom of Information laws, using the skills and experience of existing NHS staff rather than the sub-contracting of commissioning to private companies.

VII) The continued separation of the commissioning and provision of services to prevent conflicts of interests.

VIII) An NHS, responsive to patients' needs, based on co-operation rather than competition, and which promotes quality and equity not the market.

Conferences calls:

1. On the Government to uphold the NHS Constitution and publish an audit of how well organisations are living by its letter and spirit.

2. On Liberal Democrats in local government to establish local Health and Wellbeing Boards and make progress developing the new collaborative ways of working necessary to provide joined up services that are personalised and local.

3. The government to seize fully the opportunity to reverse the scandalous lack of accountability of publicly-funded local health services which has grown up under decades of Conservative and Labour governments, by:

a) Ensuring full scrutiny, including the power to require attendance, by elected local authorities of all organisations in the local health economy funded by public money, including Foundation Trusts and any external support for commissioning consortia; ensuring that all such organisations are subject to Freedom of Information requirements.

b) Ensuring Health and Wellbeing Boards (HWBs) are a strong voice for accountable local people in setting the strategic direction for and co-ordinating provision of health and social care services locally by containing substantial representation from elected local councillors; and by requiring GP Commissioning Boards to construct their Annual Plans in conjunction with the HWBs; to monitor their implementation at meetings with the HWBs not less than once each quarter; and to review the implementation of the Annual Plan with the HWBs at the end of the year prior to the construction of the Annual Plan for the forthcoming year.

c) Ensuring commissioning of health services has some degree of accountability by requiring about half of the members of the board of commissioning consortia, alongside GPs, to be local councillors appointed as non-executive directors.

d) Offering additional freedoms only to Foundation Trusts that successfully engage substantial proportions of their local populations as active members.

Applicability: England.