Hewitt to lift ban on NHS staff in private centres

30 Jun 05
The government is planning to allow private sector treatment centres to poach NHS staff despite a promise to the contrary, Unison said this week.

01 July 2005

The government is planning to allow private sector treatment centres to poach NHS staff despite a promise to the contrary, Unison said this week.

At the British Medical Association annual conference in Manchester on June 28, Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt promised to relax a rule preventing NHS staff moonlighting in independent sector treatment centres.

Staff in all but the most hard-pressed specialities, such as radiology, would be allowed to earn extra money in the ISTCs, she said.

The rule was established to ensure that the private companies running the fast-track diagnostic and surgical centres brought in additional staff rather than relying on NHS employees.

It is complemented by a no-poaching clause in the contracts with the private firms, which stops them using NHS employees or those who have worked in the health service in the previous six months.

Unison claimed Hewitt's announcement was the first step towards scrapping this rule, but the Department of Health denied this.

Unison head of health Karen Jennings said: 'This announcement, using language such as “opening up opportunity for all health staff” is just a smokescreen.

'This is a very dangerous, damaging and divisive move. We have enough problems with recruitment and retention in the NHS without private treatment centres being able to come in and cream off top NHS staff.'

Earlier in the week, BMA chair Jim Johnson said treatment centres would 'cream off' the easier, more profitable cases, leaving the NHS to pick up the pieces with the more complex work.

The government believes ISTCs will offer more capacity and give patients more choice but a BMA survey published during the conference found that patients rated choice of hospital as the least important of ten priorities for the health service. Cleaner hospitals came top.

'Choice is not the be-all and end-all for patients, but it is a real issue. When politicians and the public talk about choice, what they often mean is convenience,' Johnson said. 'Patients are not so interested in a choice of five hospitals but they want a good service in a clean local hospital.'

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