Health service for sale online

Unison has issued a press release claiming that NHS hospitals and their contents are up for sale to the highest bidder on a new website, A&E-bay.

The public sector union said that hundreds of thousands of beds, scanners, X-ray equipment, incubators, bedpans, syringes, operating theatre equipment, pacemakers, surgical instruments and stethoscopes are now up for sale on a&e-bay, as a result of the Government’s Health and Social Care Bill.

Unison supplied screen shot illustrating the sell-off on the e-bay like website, launched 1 April.

Unison said in a statement the Health and Social Care Bill “paves the way for the privatisation of the NHS with big multinational private health companies such as Care UK, Bupa and United Healthcare, first in line for the bidding”.

The press release continued: “When the NHS went up for sale at midnight it sparked a bidding frenzy with private companies eager to get a piece of the NHS on the cheap.”

Unison general secretary, Dave Prentis said: “The Health and Social Care Bill was always a recipe for privatisation.”

Prentis added: “The NHS was once the envy of the world, it is being treated more like a bargain basement lot.”