Activists from Peterborough Trade Union Council (PTUC), representing Unite, GMB, PCS, UNISON, CWU and Peterborough Pensioners’ Association, recently picketed a meeting called by Richard Branson’s Virgin Group. The pickets carried placards bearing the PTUC logo and slogans such as "Health Not Profit" and "Keep the NHS Public". Also present was the UNISON Health Branch banner that shows the slogan, "The Right to Life is Higher Than the Rights of Private Property".
The ticket-only meeting was aimed at Peterborough’s G.P.s and surgery staff, whom Virgin want to persuade to sign up to their plan to build and administer NHS health centres using sub-contracted G.P.s.
Virgin has tried to portray this as a benign interest in providing health care, but the reality has more to do with the rich pickings private companies can see waiting for them in the NHS budget. Virgin will be quite prepared to offer "incentives" to G.P.s in order to break into what it sees as a potentially lucrative market where profit can be made.
Department of Health Director of Commissioning, Mark Britnell, has confirmed that £250m a year had been earmarked for the new services. He said: ‘There is a potential business here worth more than £1bn for Virgin, Assura, Boots and other private-sector providers to bid into, alongside existing G.P.s and foundation trusts.’
The NHS trade unions have already come out in opposition to what clearly amounts to more privatisation of public services. A UNISON spokesperson has said, ‘UNISON is absolutely opposed to the move by Virgin Group into G.P. surgeries. It is deeply alarming that a private company such as Virgin will be marketing its additional services to potentially vulnerable patients when they are in need of medical care. By providing private services alongside NHS services, Virgin completely undermines the whole ethos of the NHS – a health service free at the point of need.’
The Government has also introduced a scheme in which private business can bid for Alternative Provider Medical Services contracts (APMS), where private companies take over whole G.P. practices. Health Secretary Alan Johnson plans 250 new APMS surgeries and G.P.s are already feeling the negative effect of these privatisations.
After building up his Hounslow practice over seven years into training and research practice, Dr John Edwards was outbid by Greenbrook Healthcare, a G.P.-commercial company set up specifically for the bid and based in a neighbouring Primary Care Trust.
PFI
Dr Sam Everington, former deputy chair of the BMA and current European G.P. of the Year, lost out to private company Atos Healthcare in a bid for an APMS practice. Tower Hamlets PCT rejected a bid by Dr Everington for a former PCT-run practice in Tower Hamlets, East London, near his own award-winning practice in Bromley-by-Bow.
Virgin is trying to convince G.P.s that an arrangement with them is a safe alternative to APMS. The reality, however, is that both moves amount to privatisation of NHS services – and that isn’t good for either G.P.s or patients.
G.P.s going into the Peterborough meeting accepted leaflets from the picketers setting out the points made above. One said, "To be honest, I’ve only come to heckle" and others made it clear that they were at least suspicious of Virgin’s plans.
Inside the meeting, Virgin let it be known that they were very unhappy about the presence of pickets at the entrance to the building they were using. Afterwards, a worker who had been able to get a ticket to attend the meeting told the pickets, "You’ve obviously rattled them (Virgin) because they couldn’t stop referring to ‘those foolish people outside’".
There is a process, partly open and partly concealed, of privatisation going on in the NHS. There is nothing foolish about fighting against this and arguing for a fully publicly funded National Health Service. This is not merely a matter of sentiment, but a hard-nosed practical necessity if we are to hold on to the health achievements of the last century and extend them in the current one.
All trade union activists should be campaigning against privatisation and organisations like Peterborough Trade Union Council provide an excellent means of bringing together activists from different unions in co-ordinated action.