NHS spends £1m a week on private ambulance hire
Besieged service forced to pay profit-making healthcare firms to attend urgent calls across England, says Unison
Ambulances parked outside the accident and emergency department of St Thomas' Hospital in central London.
THE austerity-hit NHS is spending more than £1 million a week hiring private ambulances across England to attend emergency calls, Unison warns today.
The eye-watering expenditure, amounting to £167,000 a day or at least £61m a year, is a “short-term fix which benefits the pockets of private firms rather than finding a long-term solution to the crisis hitting services,” the public-sector union stressed.
The call, which coincides with the opening of Unison’s three-day annual health conference in Bournemouth, came after Labour slammed Tory Party chairman Greg Hands for claiming public services are in “good shape” yesterday.
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