- Conference
- 2005 Health Care Service Group Conference
- Date
- 24 December 2004
- Decision
- Carried
This Conference condemns the New Labour Government for its slice by slice privatisation of the NHS.
In contrast with the extremely limited concessions on workers rights in the so called “Warwick Agreement”, New Labour has continued full steam ahead towards it’s goal of the full privatisation of the service.
The latest gifts to big business include:
·The Market Testing i.e. privatisation of Decontamination services;
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·The Market Testing i.e. privatisation of NHS Logistics;
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·Private sector control of Diagnostic Treatment Centres;
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·Privatisation of the Finance “Shared Services Centre” in Leeds;
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·The continued overwhelming reliance on PFI for new hospital buildings;
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·The creation of more Foundation Trusts;
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·A return to the discredited Tory policy of GP fund holding / Internal Market;
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·The expensive use of private hospitals in reaching waiting list targets;
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·The refusal to end the obscenity of Ancillary Services being contracted out 8 years after the end of Tory rule.
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Conference believes that the current neo-liberal economic policies of the Government are resulting in the biggest threat the NHS has faced in history.
We register a vote of no confidence in the Secretary of State for Health, John Reid and his cabinet colleagues who have showed a staggering bias towards business interests at every level of the service.
We therefore resolve to intensify our struggle against privatisation wherever it is proposed and redouble our efforts to return all services currently in private hands back into public ownership.
We congratulate those branches who have successfully taken industrial action against privatisation and have brought staff back in house and pledge to support and encourage branches taking similar action in the future.
We call on the SGE to step up the Health Groups campaign against privatisation, drawing on the experience of the excellent campaigning by the Scottish region and target individual companies and contracts for a campaign of industrial action.
A progress report detailing successes, failures and the extent of the number of contracts and employees involved to be produced for the 2006 Health Conference.