Dear members and supporters of People Before Profit,
Great news that we've won our campaign to prevent SERCO from getting the contract for procurenment at the new merged Lewisham & Greenwich Trust!
At the morning's board meeting 19 LPBP members and supporters were present along with half a dozen other health campaigners to follow up their written questions with oral ones.
Excellent points were made by all present and the board was left in no doubt that the people of Lewisham had not fought to save their hospital only to have bits of it privatised - and to SERCO of all people.
Together with the GMB and SE London Keep Our NHS Public we had prepared for a concerted campaign of petitioning, posters in shops, occupation of SERCO headquarters and a full frontal attack on their contract to run the DLR with leaflets and stickers calling on people not to pay their DLR fares while SERCO was angling for lucrative NHS contracts.
CELEBRATE this victory on Sunday 26th Jan
at our third Burns Night Supper.
Where: Hill Station Cafe, Kitto Road, Telegraph Hill, SE14
What: simple Burns Supper of Haggis, swede, potatoes followed by cheese and biscuits/shortbread. Whisky provided. Bring your own drinks. Scottish bitter available at cost price.
Cost: 50p to party members (and family) who are unwaged. Donation (recommended minimum £5) for waged and non-members.
Bring a relevant poem, song, act to perform. There may be dancing!
Contact me to book a place as numbers are limited. Please specify if you are vegetarian.
Full details of victory and Burns Night will be on our web site in a day or two.
Yours
------Original Message------
From: Lg Communications (LEWISHAM AND GREENWICH NHS TRUST)
Subject: Update on Serco
Sent: 14 Jan 2014 16:23
We are contacting you as you recently expressed an interest in the discussions Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust has been holding with Serco Group PLC (“Serco”) around forming a partnership in procurement.
The Board is responsible for providing the best quality health services within our allocated budget and has a duty to provide best value for money. With constrained budgets in the NHS, the Trust entered into discussions with Serco to look at making savings in procuring goods and services; lowering the cost of these would have allowed the Trust to improve patient care.
At the Board meeting in December 2013, we stated that no decisions had been made and that there would be a full review of Serco’s proposals by early 2014. This has now been carried out and the Trust Board has today (14 January) decided not to pursue working with Serco to outsource procurement services.
In reaching a decision the Board firstly considered the potential economic benefits from working with Serco. The Board decided that the case made did not represent value for tax payers’ money.
The Board does share the concerns which have been raised about Serco’s reputation. If Serco had passed the economic test, the Trust would have needed to know the outcome of the central Government review into the organisation before making a final decision on whether to proceed.
Regards,
Communications team
Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust
No comments:
Post a Comment