UNISON calls time out on hospital procurement

“The George Eliot Hospital Trust (GEHT) is being steamrollered into private hands without patients and staff being given a proper say” is the stark warning from Christina McAnea, UNISON head of Health today (3 March).
 
The union is so outraged at the way the procurement process inbeing conducted that Ms McAnea has written a strongly worded letter to the Board of Governors, calling for urgent face-to-face talks.
 
UNISON is highly critical of the secrecy surrounding the entire bidding process that it believes has resulted in a number of serious failures to meet legal requirements.  Access to crucial information has been denied by the Trust citing commercial confidentiality as a smokescreen for its actions.
 
Christina McAnea, went on to say:
 
“We need to calltime-out on the whole George Eliot procurement process.  UNISON locally has met a brick wall when making perfectly reasonable requests for information from management.  This cannot be allowed to go on and I am calling on the Board to meet with UNISON for urgent talks.”
 
The letter to the Board states that: “The arguments set out in the Business Case are no longer valid. The progress being made by the Trust has not been acknowledged.  Events in the wider NHS and policy changes undermine the original case. Even with the involvement of the NHS Trust Development Authority, the GEHT Board has the power to halt the process and has a duty to ensure that it is appropriate to continue.”
 
Ends
 
Notes to Editors
 
Private companies Care UK and Circle are in line to take over the Trust with only South Warwickshire NHS Trust left in the running after the University Hospital Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust was forced out of the bidding process last month.