Hundreds of Dorset healthcare workers are threatened by plans to move them out of the National Health Service into a private company. Health service executives want to create a “SubCo” – and to transfer over 1,700 staff from hospitals in Dorchester, Bournemouth and Poole, and from community hospitals across the county, into the new company.
Health unions say that the move amounts to privatisation of vital services and is likely to lead to cuts in sick pay, pensions and other benefits. Carrie Hartridge, chair of Unison Dorset Health, the main staff union, says: “This will affect hundreds of staff who keep our hospitals running – the people who clean the wards, feed our patients, maintain buildings and vital machinery, and keep sites secure.
“SubCos introduced elsewhere have resulted in cost-cutting, inferior services for patients, increased bureaucracy and corruption. They are a disaster for staff and for everyone who uses the NHS.”
Unison is conducting a consultative ballot for strike action among its members.
The union invites health workers and members of the public to join a demonstration in Dorchester on Saturday 2 August at 12 midday to say “No to SubCo”. The demonstration assembles at Coffee #1, the bottom of South Street, and marches to Dorset County Hospital.
Health executives in Dorset tried to impose the SubCo without consulting hospital staff. Now hundreds of NHS workers have attended meetings that demand management accountability for what Carrie Hartridge calls “back-door privatisation”. She says, “Privatization has been a disaster for our public sector. Look at the appalling mess that private water companies have created – with sewage, pollution and rocketing bills. And think of our railways – finally rail services are being brought back into public ownership following the disaster and rip-off of privatisation.
“More privatisation of the NHS would damage services that every member of the public depends upon.”
Unison members are particularly concerned that Dorset health executive David McClaughlin is playing a leading role in the SubCo project. He formerly worked for Carillion – a construction and “outsourcing” company that went bust in 2018, leaving a mountain of debt and threatening the jobs of over 40,000 workers. A special parliamentary report concluded that years of “poor decisions” by executives resulted in a debt of £1.3 billion and the company’s swift collapse.
Unison calls on local trade unionists, community organisations and users of the NHS to join the demonstration in Dorchester on Saturday, 2 August.
