10.06.16
Hunt ‘considering part-privatisation of NHS Professionals’
Health secretary Jeremy Hunt has invited Deloitte to advise on an overhaul of NHS Professionals, the state-owned company designed to provide a bank of healthcare workers, which could lead to part-privatisation of the service.
A Whitehall aide told the Financial Times that the Department of Health is considering ways of making NHS Professionals, which is currently only used by 60 NHS trusts out of the roughly 250 in England, more successful.
“Part-privatisation is not impossible,” they said, “but our starting point is that if it does a good job for 60 trusts, why can’t it do it for 250 trusts?”
Barrie Brown, Unite national officer for health, said: “The mind boggles at the fact that health secretary Jeremy Hunt thinks the best way to tackle the recruitment and retention crisis facing the health service is to privatise part of NHS Professionals to a profit-hungry private firm.”
The Department of Health last reviewed NHS Professionals’ status in 2014.
NHS Professionals is running a campaign to encourage more trusts to use bank staff as part of the government’s efforts to tackle the NHS’s expensive reliance on agency staff.
NHE contacted the Department of Health for comment but they did not respond at the time of publication.
(Image c. NHS Professionals)