The latest privatisation rip off....
£222 MILLION OF NHS CASH WASTED ON FAILED PRIVATE EXPERIMENT
Campaigners today called on the Government to slam the breaks on any further involvement of private companies in the provision of NHS services after it was revealed that £222 million of tax payers cash was overspent on private healthcare contracts last year for work that was never carried out.
The squandering of nearly a quarter of a billion of NHS cash for private sector work that was never done would have been enough to stave off many of the 25,000 job cuts in the health service over the past 18 months.
The wilful waste of precious NHS funds revolves around the use of Independent Sector Treatment Centres (ISTC's) - a New Labour initiative to hive off valuable NHS work to the private sector. Not only has the policy undermined NHS hospitals but it has handed the ISTC's gold-plated contracts which mean that even if they don't do the volume of work specified they still get paid in full.
The Government have been forced to admit today that the contracts with ISTC's - worth £1.4 billion - are running at 16% under capacity leaving £222 million of NHS funds being paid over to the private sector for nothing in return.
Geoff Martin, Health Emergency Head of Campaigns, said:
"These shocking figures will come as a kick in the teeth to health care staff who have had the threat of redundancy hanging over their heads as a result of the NHS cash crisis. At the same time the Government have been colluding with the private sector to pay over nearly a quarter of a billion pounds of taxpayers money for work that has never been done. This is a scandal of massive proportions and the politicians responsible must be called to account and the policy of farming out NHS work to the private sector must be stopped in its tracks."
Campaigners today called on the Government to slam the breaks on any further involvement of private companies in the provision of NHS services after it was revealed that £222 million of tax payers cash was overspent on private healthcare contracts last year for work that was never carried out.
The squandering of nearly a quarter of a billion of NHS cash for private sector work that was never done would have been enough to stave off many of the 25,000 job cuts in the health service over the past 18 months.
The wilful waste of precious NHS funds revolves around the use of Independent Sector Treatment Centres (ISTC's) - a New Labour initiative to hive off valuable NHS work to the private sector. Not only has the policy undermined NHS hospitals but it has handed the ISTC's gold-plated contracts which mean that even if they don't do the volume of work specified they still get paid in full.
The Government have been forced to admit today that the contracts with ISTC's - worth £1.4 billion - are running at 16% under capacity leaving £222 million of NHS funds being paid over to the private sector for nothing in return.
Geoff Martin, Health Emergency Head of Campaigns, said:
"These shocking figures will come as a kick in the teeth to health care staff who have had the threat of redundancy hanging over their heads as a result of the NHS cash crisis. At the same time the Government have been colluding with the private sector to pay over nearly a quarter of a billion pounds of taxpayers money for work that has never been done. This is a scandal of massive proportions and the politicians responsible must be called to account and the policy of farming out NHS work to the private sector must be stopped in its tracks."
posted by Geoff Martin at 8:18 AM
1 Comments:
Hi Geoff, I like your blog and I feel we share sufficient common ground for a link to each others blogs to be mutually beneficial.If you agree to link then please contact me at 'An Unrepentant Communist'
http://unrepentantcommunist.blogspot.com/
on the commments page of the current post,and I will immediately link your blog to mine.Looking forward to hearing from you.
Gabriel in County Kerry Ireland
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