Stroud Against the Cuts

On 1st October, if Gloucestershire NHS Management has its way, Stroud Hospital, 8

other local hospitals, and 4,000 NHS nurses, health visitors, physiotherapists, podiatrists,

etc, will all leave the NHS and be forced into a secretive ‘Social Enterprise Trust’,

a registered company which will then ‘compete’ with other ‘providers’.

The transfer to social enterprise is a step to privatisation. It is being forced through

without proper consultation of staff and no consultation of the public, and it has not

been scrutinised by Gloucestershire County Council (through the Health & Social Care

Overview & Scrutiny Committee). At the same time the government’s Health and Social

Care Bill will also accelerate privatisation of our NHS.

‘The NHS will exist for as long as there are people left with faith to fight for it’ Nye Bevan, founder of the NHS

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least £3MILLION A YEAR in unnecessary VAT, and massive administration costs to replace

the back office services it currently gets free from the central NHS. This money will have to

come from patient care.

- It is a FIGLEAF FOR PRIVATISATION of our health service. The contract will run for a

maximum of 3 years (or much less, if commissioners judge it to be ‘failing’) and then all

services will be opened to any private company that wants to run them for profit. In Hull,

where the first transfer of NHS services to a ‘social enterprise’ took place, several awardwinning

clinics were fully privatised within months, resulting in shortages of staff and even

bandages (whilst administration costs ballooned).

- It will mean POORER CARE, FEWER SKILLED STAFF, and LONGER WAITING LISTS, as

corners are cut to turn a surplus and to pay for admin. £20 billion of cuts to NHS jobs and

services have already started, and this isolated ‘social enterprise’ will be poorly placed to

resist them. Instead, the cap on NHS hospitals & clinics earning income from private patients

will be lifted, meaning that those who can afford to pay will be able to jump the queue far

more easily, at the expense of the rest of us.

- All decisions about care, contracts etc. could be made BEHIND LOCKED DOORS with no

accountability to the public. They are already using the excuse of ‘commercial confidentiality’

to hide their plans from the public.

These changes are unnecessary, expensive, and dangerous. No-one locally has been asked

if they want them. The local community and health trade unions together, can stop them.

The Health and Social Care Bill – How does it fit in?

government is trying to force its Health and Social Care Bill through parliament. Aside from

forcing unwilling GP’s to become accountants, this bill also removes all barriers to privatisation

by opening up the NHS to EU competition rules and by removing the government’s

responsibility to provide a comprehensive free health care system. Trusts which have left the

NHS to become a social enterprise will be the most vulnerable to takeover by healthcare

multinationals.