NHS Gloucester has conceded that it can include giving a non-tendered contract to a local NHS body as one of the options for the county’s primary health services, reversing its stance after campaigning by local protest groups.
The option of creating a standalone NHS trust is now “exceptionally back on the table,” according to protest group Stroud Against the Cuts (SATC), having previously been ruled out by the Department of Health.
On 16 May, PCT Cluster chief executive at NHS Gloucestershire Jan Stubbings wrote to campaigners admitting that it does have a choice regarding whether or not local NHS services are handed to an NHS organisation, with no competitive tendering process, or put out to tender.
The next day, campaigners took their calls for a “genuine” consideration of NHS options to run the county’s nine community hospitals and nine health clinics to the first public meeting of the shadow Clinical Commissioning Group. The organisation was created by the Health and Social Care Act, made up of local GPs, to take over the role of choosing which organisations provide local healthcare services from the PCT in 2013.
Establishing an NHS Trust
“There is no reason why services must be auctioned off,” said James Beecher, chair of SATC. “While services remain within the NHS, local health bosses always have a choice to keep them publicly-owned and accountable. We can avoid wasting up to half a million pounds on an unnecessary tendering process, exposing our NHS to EU laws and the damaging effects of privatisation.”
Caroline Molloy of SATC added: “The support of the people of Gloucestershire and NHS staff for this campaign has forced NHS Gloucestershire management to think again. We will continue to both fight any attempts to privatise our local services, and to join with the national movement to defend our NHS, that has been burgeoning since the passage of the Health and Social Care Act as the strongest assault on our health services yet.”
NHS Gloucestershire said in a statement: “We have this week received notification from the Department of Health that our board will be allowed to consider, amongst others, the option of the establishment of an NHS Trust to provide these services (as a precursor to a possible application for Community Foundation Trust status).
“The management of Gloucestershire Care Services (GCS) will be talking with their staff over the coming days and weeks and will be inviting them to indicate their preference on what form GCS should express an interest in the future management of services. This could include the creation of an NHS Trust.
“As described on Tuesday, following the recent legal case, we agreed to advertise for expressions of interest from providers and interested parties, including NHS bodies, inviting them to give their views on how these services could be provided in the future.
“There will be 30 days for providers and interested parties to express an interest.”
Latest twist
Today’s news represents just the latest twist in a dispute that has been ongoing since September last year, when SATC issued a ‘letter before claim’ to the NHS management warning against its plans to allocate local Primary Care Trust services to a community interest company.
A court order was reached in February which forced the PCT to withdraw its plans to outsource the hospitals and services with a promise to “consider other options”, but further protests followed last month as the PCT refuted SATC’s assertion that a contract with another NHS body could be pursued without the need for a full competitive tender, claiming that such a move would be in breach of EU procurement law. With today’s development, that stance has now turned around.
SATC’s ‘Keep Gloucestershire’s NHS Public’ campaign is fiercely anti-privatisation and the group is asking like-minded campaigners locally and nationally to join up for rallies across the country on 16 June.
