Electing a Labour government with its close links to the trade unions raises many expectations. The King’s Speech commitment to legislate policy around workers’ rights includes tackling decades of outsourcing, with … Read more
Outsourcing
New regulations will reduce some forms of outsourcing in the NHS, but there are significant gaps which a UNISON campaign is aiming to fix. A reduction in the competitive tendering … Read more
The president of the Royal College of Ophthalmologists has sparked a row with independent sector bosses after warning ophthalmology risks becoming largely privatised unless NHS England radically changes the specialty’s … Read more
The Guardian has revealed that the NHS is to hand a key role in handling patient data and share of a £480m contract to the US spy technology firm Palantir. … Read more
In the face of rising waiting lists government policy has aimed to increase the role of the independent sector in tackling these record delays, but as a Lowdown analysis of … Read more
Sky News has reported on a report in The Times that patients will soon be able to use the NHS app to opt for private hospital treatment in an effort … Read more
NHS England has awarded a contract to St John Ambulance for additional ambulance service capacity nationally to help cope with high demand and handover delays, with the capacity available from … Read more
Privatisation of the NHS has been found to correspond to a decline in care quality and “significantly” increased deaths from treatable causes, according to a study from researchers at the … Read more
Optum, a subsidiary of the US corporation United Health, is to acquire Leeds-based EMIS Group, one of the UK’s largest handlers of NHS data. The deal values EMIS at approximately … Read more
The private cancer diagnostic and treatment company Rutherford Health has been placed into liquidation. Only eight months ago the opening of a new community diagnostics hub (CDH) within a partnership between … Read more
The police have raided the London home of Tory peer Michelle Mone as part of a police fraud probe into multi-million pound PPE deals relating to a company she has been linked … Read more
Seven companies – Bramble Hub, Deloitte, EY, KPMG, McKinsey & Co, Newton Europe and PwC – are being paid up to £42m for an initial two-month data contract, amid growing concern over the increasing … Read more
The NHS England ‘Delivery Plan’ to tackle the growing backlog of waiting list treatment, announced on February 8, is not a plan at all. It lacks sufficient investment and – … Read more
While the NHS has to badger and campaign to secure even a £20bn down payment on the costs of reconstruction after more than a decade of decline and falling real … Read more
The evidence of a massive increase in people in need of help from mental health services in the UK is now incontrovertible. NHS England reports 1.4 million people on the … Read more
Over the Christmas-New Year break more scientists joined a growing outcry against the government plan to sell off the Vaccine Manufacturing and Innovation Centre UK (VMIC), which was first revealed by the Financial Times at the … Read more
Inquests held just seven days apart heard how Nadia Shah, 16, and 19-year-old Leon Tasi were found with ligatures round their neck at clinics run by private company Elysium Healthcare. … Read more
A total, constipated silence from the NHS and ministers shrouds the long-delayed new “mega lab” that was supposed to have opened in Leamington Spa last January as part of the … Read more
A Care Quality Commission report states that failures at the private provider Healthcare at Home meant that patients have come to avoidable harm; the company failed to deliver thousands of … Read more
Imperial College Healthcare trust has decided to keep hotel services, which includes porters, cleaners and catering, inhouse across its sites, after the success of a one-year trial. Until early 2020 … Read more
