Kevin Rowan column

Apr 24 2006 By Kevin Rowan, The Journal

The National Health Service remains, consistently, the most popular British institution in history.

It is an organisation that engenders pride in everyone in this country and it is seriously envied by people in many other countries, both developed and developing.

The NHS is entirely funded by Inland Revenue receipts. The notion that every tax-paying citizen should contribute to a service that is delivered for any citizen who needs it is a fantastic principle; a notion upon which modern civil society is founded; the quintessential basis of community.

These fundamental principles are what make the public very suspicious about private sector involvement in delivering NHS functions. It is a brave, or perhaps foolhardy, government that proposes any such privatisation.

Yet, within its determined "public sector reform" agenda, that is exactly what the Government is doing.

Today, coinciding with Unison's National Health Conference, there will be a demonstration against the privatisation of several NHS operations.

Under a new NHS Business Services Authority the Dental Practice Board, NHS Logistics, the Prescription Pricing Authority and the NHS Pensions Agency would all be subject to privatisation.

The PPA is based in Newcastle, ironically it is one of the few head offices we have in the region. A mixture of the privatisation agenda and the government's public sector reforms, which seek to minimise so-called `back office' functions will see the staff in the PPA reduce from almost 500 to just over 200.

The experience of this model of public sector reform in the civil service, particularly in benefit claimant services, has meant that there has been insufficient numbers of staff to deal with the calls or clients needing their services.

There is no public demand for these services to be privatised and the total "savings" to the tax payer would be minimal compared to the risk that would be incurred when viewed relative to other privatisations.

Surely the Government must think again.

The savings they want to make can be made while keeping these services in the public sector.

Public sector workers are held in high esteem by the public, it's high time the Government matched that view.

Kevin Rowan is regional secretary of the Northern TUC