- Conference
- 2005 Health Care Service Group Conference
- Date
- 22 December 2004
- Decision
- Carried
Ambulance Trust Staff are best suited to the safe, caring transportation of patients to and from hospitals or other care centres whatever their level of urgency.
This conference is very concerned at the use of the private sector, and in particular security companies to carry out such duties.
Cost cutting and insufficient numbers of in-house staff are often given as the main reasons for such privatisation. These merely illustrate the limited and short term thinking behind such initiatives and neglect the following issues:
·NHS employees with patient contact and care responsibilities are subject to legislative regulation, application of NHS guidelines and procedures and they receive appropriate training. Such processes will be difficult if not impossible to apply to a private sector that has a high turnover of staff due to low wages, poor conditions and low morale;
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·Initiatives to tackle infectious diseases such as MRSA could be easily undermined through the use of vehicles and personnel that do not meet NHS hygiene standards;
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·The private security industry has a poor record of people transportation, including losing prisoners on a regular basis. Putting unqualified and inexperienced staff in charge of patients will no doubt only create more problems than it solves;
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·Continued use of the private sector, where the majority of staff receive far less pay and worse conditions than those employed by the NHS, fundamentally undermines the equalities principles embodied in the Agenda for Change agreement. Further such practice runs contrary to the public assurances given by the Government to end the two-tier workforce.
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This conference therefore instructs the Health Service Group Executive to bring pressure to bear on the Department of Health to stop commissioning Trusts awarding Patient Transport contracts to anyone other than NHS Ambulance Services.