This would be privatisation by the back door.
The company would be outside the NHS publicly owned and provided structure. It would own all the assets, land and buildings transferred to it. This would not be an acceptable disposal of public assets.
At some stage in the future, it will be at risk of an aggressive buyout which will remove all once publicly owned assets building and land transferred with it, into profiteers hands, forever.
It would remove the rights of the workforce to NHS terms and conditions after the statutory TUPE date and in any case, in the event of a downturn in revenue or other ‘financial crisis’ scenario and to new employees.
It would create a 2 tier workforce as new employees will have less security, terms and conditions, holiday rights, sick pay and no access to NHS pension.
This is likely to impact negatively on patient experience if the new workforce is more transient, without the public sector ethos.
It’s a VAT scam? Certainly, it’s worrying that many of the SubCo plans seem to emphasise this VAT “gambit”. Gloucestershire, for example, told staff it would save £35m over 10 years through this ruse, whilst the staff savings were merely “unquantifiable”. And the Department of Health has advised against it. But the biggest similar scheme to date, UnitingCare in Cambridgeshire, collapsed spectacularly – and one of the major reasons (according to both NHS England and the National Audit Office reports) was because the NHS signed the contract on the basis of incorrect advice about their VAT position, meaning an unexpected £5m a year was added to the costs and the arrangement collapsed.
There has been no consultation to date with members of the public and patients.
Privatising cleaning services lead to development of MRSA a study shows.
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/314890.php
By the time this new move is shown to be a disaster it will be too late. A Special Purpose Vehicle could prove to be a false economy.
We are not opposed to change for the better, but we view the input from management consultants and attempts to privatise NHS services and estates, with suspicion. Please explore other options.
New research shows use of Management Consultants increase inefficiency.
http://www.bmj.com/content/360/bmj.k893.
https://www.opendemocracy.net/ournhs/jonathan-allsop/time-to-halt-nhs-gravy-train-for-management-consultants
http://www.bmj.com/content/360/bmj.k893
