As I wrote recently, increased attacks on the NHS and its staff in the media recently have flagged a stepping-up of the assault by Andrew Lansley’s Department of Health on our National Health Service.
News channels covered today the plans by the South West Pay Terms and Conditions Consortium, a government sanctioned cartel formed to attack the pay & conditions of all health-workers in the South-West of England, to fire all its staff and rehire them on diminished pay & terms, if they fail to ‘voluntarily’ accept the worsened terms.
The level of co-ordination among DH, Trusts and media is such that there has to have been a deep degree of collaboration – to erode public support for health workers and to corral them into accepting this attack on their income.
I’ll be writing more on this topic from a wider perspective, but first, in an attempt to uncover this collusion and expose it publicly, I’ve submitted the following FOI request to the DH:
To: Department of Health
Subject: Freedom of Information request – South West Pay Terms and Conditions Consortium
Dear Department of Health,
Under the Freedom of Information Act, I require:
1) Copies of any communications, over the past 12 months from the
date of this request, between DH and South West Pay Terms and
Conditions Consortium/South West Consortium Partnership – including
minutes/transcripts of meetings or phone calls, and including
communications between DH and any of the constituent members of the
consortium.
2) Dates, times and locations of any meetings between DH personnel
and executives of either the constituent trusts or the
consortium/partnership itself, during the same period.
Thank you.
Yours faithfully,
Steve Walker
These people are as slippery as eels, but watch this space to find out what kind of response I get.