Published: 26 July 2007
Safe in New Labour Hands is it?
Concerns have been raised about the future of health visiting services in Peterborough which could affect thousands of families with young children.
Health trade union, Unite is worried by proposals by Peterborough Primary Care Trust (PCT) to hive off about 75 health visitors, health & development staff nurses and community nursery nurses into a privately-run Social Enterprise organisation.
Unite is concerned what this will mean for the future of the city’s healthy visiting service, which assists parents with child development, parenting and postnatal depression issues, as well as being in the forefront of child protection.
Unite said that PCT managers have not explained in sufficient detail what the Social Enterprise will mean for staff and the services they provide to enable the community nurses to make a balanced judgment about the future.
The PCT is currently undertaking a three-month consultation on a number of options, including the health visitors working for the city council or being attached to the local NHS hospital trust, Peterborough and Stamford.
Unite has warned that ‘social enterprise’ organisations are outside the NHS and that Agenda for Change pay & conditions would not necessarily apply.
Existing staff would be covered under TUPE legislation, but this was ‘not set in stone’. Pensions would only have to be ‘broadly comparable’ to the NHS pension scheme.
Unite Regional Officer, Tony Ellingford said:
“Our members have not had enough information from the PCT to make a considered judgment on this issue in terms of what their future pay, employment conditions and pensions may be.
This move, if it goes ahead, could also have grave implications for families in Peterborough. A Social Enterprise firm may have a very tight contract with the PCT in the future which says health visitors will only provide certain services to the families that could be far less than what is currently provided.’
‘This would be a retrograde step and undermine the government’s public health goals - and there are a number of deprived areas in Peterborough which could lose out severely”.
It is expected that a final decision will be made in the autumn.
Social enterprises are Labour’s latest ‘best thing since sliced bread’ and may well be the ideal format for setting up an organisation to provide a new service that is not already being provided by the public sector.
However, they can also be used as a cover for ‘privatising’ existing public services – giving protection to existing staff perhaps on pay & conditions – but imposing less favourable conditions as new staff join.
Further information
Unite/CPHVA
Peterborough Primary Care Trust (PCT)
Social enterprise : Department of Health
Social Enterprise Coalition
Social Enterprise Coalition (What is social enterprise?)
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