NHS Gloucestershire in outsourcing u-turn

Gloucestershire NHS is to reverse controversial plans to outsource eight community hospitals and health services, along with their 3,000 nurses and other health workers. 

Gloucestershire Primary Care Trust had planned to create England’s largest transfer out of the NHS through the move to a community interest company but was successfully challenged by local campaigners.

The board of NHS Gloucestershire has just voted instead to create a new standalone NHS trust, rejecting other options it had been considering of opening up the local health services to bids from the private sector.

The move follows a hard-fought 18 month campaign by campaigners across the county. This included a High Court challenge against the Primary Care Trust’s outsourcing plans by local resident Michael Lloyd who argued that NHS options for services had not properly been considered.  His lawyers, Leigh Day & Co, obtained a court order in February 2012 halting the proposed outsourcing and requiring NHS Gloucestershire to consider NHS options.

In May, health ministers conceded that creating an NHS Trust was an option, and that there was no legal requirement on local health bosses to put services up for tender. The local PCT accepted the view of the ministers. The court order had also required NHS Gloucestershire to consult staff and the public. These consultations resulted in 91 per cent of staff and 96 per cent of the public voting for the services to be run by an NHS Trust.

Michael Lloyd said “I am delighted by today’s decision.....  The public, and the staff who provide my healthcare, should have been consulted in the first place, so I’m very pleased that our voices have been listened to at last.”

Neasa MacErlean