11.11.15
Wiltshire child health services transferred from NHS to Virgin Care
All community child health services in Wiltshire will be privatised under a five-year £64m contract with Virgin Care, it has been announced today (11 November).
Services are currently provided by the five NHS providers within the Wiltshire CCG catchment – a set-up which NHS England, Wiltshire Council and the CCG believe blocks access to “consistent and equitable” levels of care and support.
As a result, these services – including, among others, children’s specialist community nursing, health visiting and speech and language therapy – will be transferred to the private giant from April 2016.
The contract was awarded following what the CCG has called a "robust" procurement process fed by the views of the children and parents affected by services.
Deborah Fielding, accountable officer for the CCG, said: “It was important to us that before we started looking at the contract for community child health services, that we really understood how the children, their parents and their families feel about the services they receive.
“So, together with Wiltshire Council, NHS England and our partners around the county we held several workshops, developed an online survey and spoke with children, their families and carers. It’s with their help that we designed the principles that the new service will adhere to.”
Other professionals involved in the move – such as NHS England’s director of commissioning and Wiltshire Council’s two corporate directors – are adamant that privatising services will ensure children receive the best possible start in life.
Importantly, they believe that the new contract will open up possibilities of joined-up working between health and social care professionals to lift standards of care and improve service access.
The move will also help services continue to meet statutory duties linked to safeguarding and the new responsibilities in relation to children and young people with a special educational need or disability.
Staff working in these areas will continue their role with the same employment terms, but will respond to Virgin rather than the NHS from next year.
In July, Virgin Care bagged a larger £130m deal to run child services in Devon. It competed with – and outbid – a consortium of Devon Partnership NHS Trust with charities Barnado’s, Young Devon and Interserve, as well as with Serco and Cornwall Partnership NHS Trust.