Tuesday, September 26, 2006

NHS Strikes today... for what?

Another day in Guildford begins with yet another two hour session of the Today programe. Apparently there are to be strikes in the NHS today by delivery drivers. I'm not going to pretend to know all the details to be honest, save to say that from what I do know this is about outsoricing the delivery of "things" within the NHS.

I'm going to presume that those "things" are medical supplies, drugs, and other stuff that people like DHL specialise in. In fact, the name DHL was mentioned on the radio so I;m guessing they are the provider. It sounded very much like the issue for the strikers was that their jobs were being transferred to a private company.

Unsuprisingly, what with me being a Tory, I'm not quite sure why this deserves strike action. I understand the whole "NHS is not for profit" argument very well, but we're not talking about private medical care, we're talking about the people delivering cardboard puke trays to hospitals. It makes perfect sense to have someone working to a Service Level Agreement which, if not met, will lose them the contract.

I note that there will probably not be a follow-up striuke once this stuff has actually been fully out-sourced according tothe radio. If it's so much of an issue for the Unions you'd think they'd plan more wouldn't you?

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