Nottingham University Hospitals Trust have outraged trade unions and campaigners by outsourcing parts of their finance department in the desperate effort to cut spending. The Trust faces a £104m deficit as the inadequate NHS budget has come under pressure.
In total, 84 staff, many of whom have been loyal employees for up to 35 years, have had their jobs put at risk. At least sixteen of them have opted for redundancy rather than move to Leeds. The payroll and pensions services were the first to be officially transferred on October 1 to SBS (Shared Business Services), the part-privatised NHS arms-length body hooked up with French multinational Sopra Steria.
UNISON fears many more will be made redundant as other services are handed over next April, with nobody feeling safe. And they warn that there could be serious problems for the Trust if the new contractor fails to keep on top of the many complexities of administering the finances, and keeping supplies flowing.
A protest march by staff to the public Trust board meeting on September 7 handed over a petition of more than 2,000 signatures opposing the move, and calling on the Trust to reverse its decision.
“SBS have got the contract, but they don’t want the staff,” said a UNISON rep explaining the situation in a video of the lobby of the Trust Board. The outsourcing follows years in which the Trust has failed to invest in modern systems, making it unlikely that the jobs can be easily brought back in-house.
Eight MPs from Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire backed the petition, urging “ministerial colleagues to reiterate calls for building a publicly-owned NHS which is fit for the future, both medically and administratively.”
But with trusts driven to such desperate measures in the quest for savings it seems more likely that other trusts may follow suit than for ministers to oppose this latest example of privatisation.
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