Published: 13 March 2009
Wales NHS to be Ring Fenced from Privatisation
Plans to reform NHS bureaucracy in Wales will mean that the service is ‘ring fenced’ from the privatisation tide threatening the health service in England, Unite the union has said.
Unite welcomed the statement by Edwina Hart, Minister for Health and Social Services in the Welsh Assembly Government on plans to streamline the NHS Local Health Boards from 22 to just seven.
Steve Sloan, Unite’s Lead Officer for the health sector in Wales, said:
“The reforms now taking shape, which we welcomed when they were first floated last summer, herald the prospect that there is a coherent strategy for the future of the NHS in Wales as a whole.
And it will mean that the privatisation agenda that is gathering apace in England and threatens to erode services there won’t cross Offa’s Dyke.
Wales will be ring fenced from the excesses of the privatisation experiment.
The other side of the equation is that these reforms will contribute greatly to improved healthcare for patients and clients in Wales, which has some of the highest pockets of deprivation in terms of health indices in the UK”.
Unite, which embraces the Community Practitioners’ and Health Visitors’ Association, also welcomed the suggestion of a Professional Forum which will bring the professions in each LHB into one group. Officials are doing more work on the best model for these forums.
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