Warning over £1.6bn NHS contract

12 April 2012

The Government has been warned it is running a "huge risk" by giving a lucrative £1.6 billion contract to a German-owned firm to carry out work for the NHS.

Haulage giant DHL was awarded a 10-year contract covering the supply and delivery of medical products, laundry, uniforms, laboratory equipment and other items.

The transfer of work from NHS Logistics from October was bitterly attacked by critics of the Government's health reforms.

Unison said it had no confidence in the Government's ability to negotiate such a big contract given its recent track record in the NHS.

Hundreds of workers belonging to Unison are already been balloted for strikes after it became known in the summer that ministers were considering outsourcing the contract.

The result of the ballot will be announced next week and could spark the biggest outbreak of industrial action in the NHS over privatisation.

Karen Jennings, the union's head of health said: "Despite repeated requests we still have not seen the business case for transferring NHS Logistics to parcel company DHL because of so called 'commercial confidentiality'.

"The Government is running a huge risk by forging ahead with this contract given the under-performance of the private sector in the NHS.

"We have no confidence in the Government's ability to negotiate such a huge contract given their recent track record in the NHS."

Sharon Holder, national officer for GMB members in the NHS, and Mick Rix, the union's officer for DHL workers, said: "The announcement of the plan to privatise NHS Logistics makes explicit the Government's intention to dismantle the NHS bit by bit."

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in