- Conference
- 2025 National Retired Members Conference
- Date
- 6 June 2025
- Decision
- Carried as Amended
Motion from Birmingham UNISON Retired Members Section
NHS budget and outsourcing to the private health care sector
Retired Members Conference welcomes the allocation by the Labour Government of an extra £22 billion in funding to the NHS.
However, unfortunately this sum will not be enough to repair the massive damage that has already been done to our NHS , as a consequence of 14 years of austerity and real terms cuts to revenue and capital funding.
With an existing backlog of £14 million for general maintenance, and the pressing issue of at least seven NHS Hospitals being riddled with RAAC concrete , which poses a health and safety risk to staff and patients, it is clear that the modernisation of our NHS infrastructure is required and much more of a Capital Investment is required , than has been allocated for in the 2024 Autumn Budget and the subsequent Spring 2025 budget.
Alongside this, Retired Members wish to register our opposition to the increased level of outsourcing of surgical procedures to the private sector. The current Secretary of State for Health and Social Care sees this as a way of reducing the current 7.5 million on the NHS waiting lists, 33 per cent of whom – 2.5 million – being over 55. However, the reality is that this has little impact on the waiting lists, because private hospitals have limited facilities, with the average private hospital having only 50 beds. They also do not have the capacity to deal with Medical Emergencies.
The private sector will cherry pick in terms of the work they will undertake , and focus on simple elective procedures, rather than that of long term or chronic conditions which our Retired Members are more likely to suffer from, nor on the rising tide of emergencies that present in A&E Departments
Conference therefore calls on the National Retired Members Committee to work in conjunction with our union’s NEC , the National Pensioners’ Convention, TUC Pensioners organisations, Age UK, the Scottish Pensioners Forum and the union’s National Labour Link Committee, to lobby the government and campaign for an NHS that is:
• free at the point of delivery and accessible to all
• publicly funded through general taxation
• does not have its services outsourced to for-profit private health care providers.