A damning report by the National Audit Office (NAO) today
(Thursday 17 May) on Capita’s £330 million contract with NHS
England to provide primary care services reinforces the folly of
privatisation, Unite, the country’s largest union, said.
Unite said that the NAO had performed a sterling public service
in highlighting the failures in the seven year contract, starting
in August 2015, which included an estimated 1,000 GP, dentists
and opticians being delayed from working with patients.
Unite, which has 100,000 members in the health service, has long
campaigned against the outsourcing and fragmentation of NHS
services to companies whose primary motive is profit.
Most recently, Unite warned that the NHS faces a ‘Pandora’s
Box of Carillion-type meltdowns’, if NHS trusts continue to set
up subsidiaries to avoid paying tax and wrote to the health and
social care secretary calling for an immediate
moratorium on further private limited companies being established
by trusts in England.
Unite national officer for health Colenzo Jarrett-Thorpe
said: “The National Audit Office has performed a sterling
public service in pinpointing the glaring failings in the Capita
contract.
“This scathing report once more highlights the folly of
privatising NHS services where the profit motive trumps patient
care – the time has come for the government to say ‘enough is
enough’.
“The NAO findings are given extra pungency by yesterday’s
excoriating report by two Commons select committees into the
collapse of outsourcing giant Carillion in January.
“How many more reports are needed to reinforce the case that the
privatisation of NHS services short changes patients in
particular and the taxpayer in general?”
