Cleaners, porters and caterers at East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust were “thrown to the wolves” today as they were told their jobs could be moved out of the NHS.

In a letter to staff, chief executive Nick Hulme said the trust was planning to privatise housekeeping, security and other services in Colchester and Ipswich hospitals alongside ESNEFT’s community services.

Ipswich Hospital’s facilities are outsourced to private company OCS, but the contract ends April next year. The ESNEFT board has now decided to put all services out to a single tender over the next 12 months, Unison says.

Unison Eastern head of health Caroline Hennessy said: “The trust should have used the end of the OCS contract to bring all facilities management back in house, where staff are treated better and able to provide higher-quality services to patients.

“Instead workers are being thrown to the wolves so that some private company can milk some cash out of the health service.”

“Nick Hulme and the board are in for a shock if they think staff will take this attack lying down.”