Copied from Doctors net news. If people were in any doubt about what the Tories are up to. Make no mistake, where they lead, Northern Ireland will follow. Row as defence industry targets GP services A major defence manufacturer is bidding for a major contract that will provide backroom services for GPs, it has been revealed. Lockheed Martin has expressed an interest in the £1 billion project, which is being put out to tender by NHS England, alongside companies such as KPMG and Serco and G4S. Anglian Community Enterprise, a social enterprise that emerged from the NHS, also attended a meeting for potential bidders, the Health Service Journal reported. The deal is due to run for ten years and is expected to cut the cost of providing services. It will undertake tasks such as maintain practice lists, administer prescription payments, keep pensions and medical records and run screening programmes. Nick Bradley, of Unison, said: “This huge privatisation of essential backroom services to the NHS is an absolute disgrace. For several months the staff and the trade unions that represented them were involved in detailed discussions to modernise and reorganise these services. “The contract has been advertised in a way that means that no NHS body can bid for the work. Only a huge private company able to raise funds or have funds to pay for redundancies and reorganisation can possibly bid for the work.” * Private companies are on course to collect £9 billion worth of NHS services in the last 18 months, it was claimed yesterday. NHS run services have gone to the private sector after local commissioners were required to put a limited number of services out to tender. The latest analysis comes from campaign group the NHS Support Federation. It said that so far some £2.6 billion worth of NHS services have gone to the private sector since April 2013. The Federation says another £13 billion worth of services have been put out to tender - and it expects about 50% of them to go to the private sector. British Medical Association chair Dr Mark Porter said: “These figures show the extent of privatisation in the NHS following the pushing through of the Health and Social Care Act - an act that the government denied loud and long would lead to privatisation, has done exactly that. A Department of Health spokesman said: “The figures quoted in this sample are highly misleading. Use of the private sector amounts to only six pence in every pound the NHS spends, an increase of just one penny since May 2010.
Posted on: Thu, 20 Nov 2014 05:09:55 +0000
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