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Staff on a NHS hospital ward at Ealing Hospital in London
CAMPAIGNERS have raised concerns after the government seemingly dropped plans to declare the NHS the “preferred provider” of commissioned healthcare services.
The pledge was part of Labour’s National Policy Forum document adopted by the party’s last conference before the general election.
It signalled a shift away from commissioning private firms, with the party vowing to “end the reliance on outsourcing and cronyism that saw our public services weakened in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic.”
Despite promises of a new era of insourcing, billions of pounds of public contracts continue to flow to private firms. Unions are now calling for urgent action to bring services back in-house, says EDDIE DEMPSEY
In the second part of her critique of Wes Streeting’s TenYear Plan for Health, HELEN MERCER looks at the central planks of this privatisation blueprint