The big health unions were mobilised yesterday by the TUC general secretary, Brendan Barber, for a fightback against the government's plan for the private sector to manage a tier of the NHS with a budget of £64bn.
He called on Unison, Amicus, the GMB, TGWU, the Royal College of Nursing and other NHS professional associations to meet on July 12 to work out a strategy for resisting the privatisation of primary care trusts, which are responsible for purchasing healthcare from hospitals and GPs.
The government's plan was disclosed in an advertisement in the EU official journal inviting companies to take on most of the PCTs' work.
The Department of Health withdrew the advertisement on Thursday after questions from the Guardian made ministers realise that it contained serious drafting errors. But they intend to press ahead with the plan to contract out key parts of NHS management.
Patricia Hewitt, health secretary, said in a letter to the Guardian last night: "There is no question whatsoever of 'privatising' the NHS ... PCTs are and will remain public, statutory bodies responsible for using their growing budgets to commission the best possible services for local people. They can never outsource this responsibility."
She made it clear, however, that the government wants to make it easier for PCTs to buy in management expertise from private corporations. Although she did not name any of them, the bidders are likely to include the US healthcare giants United Health and Kaiser Permanente. John Lister, of the pressure group Health Emergency, said Ms Hewitt's plan would put the lion's share of NHS spending under the control of private companies which were unaccountable to local people.
Karen Jennings, head of health at Unison, said: "It is hard to see this as anything other than privatisation by stealth ... We were told 12 months ago that the DH was mistaken when it told PCTs they were to be stripped of their commissioning powers. It now looks as if that was the government's plan all along."
James Johnson, chairman of the British Medical Association, said : "Doctors at the BMA's annual conference came out strongly against giving commissioning of NHS healthcare to the commercial private sector. Ms Hewitt says ... frontline staff who provide clinical services are not involved. It only seems to be a short step to move to clinical services and that would be a step in completely the wrong direction. We are opposed to it."
Steve Webb, Liberal Democrat health spokesman, said: "Once again, health policy is being changed by stealth, bypassing parliament, bypassing professionals, and bypassing patients. These secret plans represent a fundamental shift in what the NHS is. For most people the NHS is about providing healthcare, not buying it from the lowest bidder."
