As the RMT Health and Safety Conference takes place, the union is calling for urgent action on crisis of work-related stress, understaffing and the growing threat of workplace assaults. RMT leader EDDIE DEMPSEY explains
IN ANOTHER example of how the coronavirus crisis has driven privatisation, Deloitte were given full charge of the drive-through Covid-19 testing programme: the government sees a medical emergency and turns to accountants and management consultants. Deloitte subcontracted much of the work to the likes of Sodexo and Mitie.
A new report reveals Deloitte also played a central role in the development of NHS Supply Chain, which has struggled so badly to provide PPE supplies to NHS workers in the pandemic.
Its involvement emerged in a report by University of Greenwich professor David Hall, co-published with the anti-privatisation group We Own It. Dr John Lister, both a health expert and redoubtable campaigner also co-wrote the report, which examines the history of the agency that buys and distributes most NHS “consumables,” including PPE. It’s already had some coverage in the Morning Star, but I wanted to look at some details.
SOLOMON HUGHES asks whether Labour ‘engaging with decision-makers’ with scandalous records of fleecing the public is really in our interests
US General Stanley McChrystal has been invited to advise on creating a ‘team of teams’ for healthcare transformation. His credentials? He previously ran interrogation bases where Iraqis were stripped naked and beaten, reports SOLOMON HUGHES
Despite Labour’s promises to bring things ‘in-house,’ the Justice Secretary has awarded notorious outsourcing outfit Mitie a £329 million contract to run a new prison — despite its track record of abuse and neglect in its migrant facilities, reports SOLOMON HUGHES



