Banbury area ambulance service pays £50m+ for private vehicles as SE trusts spend £850m on outsourcing

News that NHS trusts in the south east are paying at least £850m per year to profit-seeking companies was released by the GMB union this week.

The union delivered the news in a message to government over the NHS on Monday, as it demanded an end to outsourcing – paying profit-making companies to take on NHS work.

Its investigations, using Freedom of Information (FOI) requests, showed South Central Ambulance Service (SCAS) spent more than £50 million on private ambulances over the past three years.

The FOI responses showed £852,904,261 was spent every year on privatised work. Only 16 trusts in the South East responded to the request – meaning the true figure could be far higher, says the GMB.

The total annual spend has almost doubled since 2021/2022.

A spokesman for South Central Ambulance Service said: “Our use of private providers has reduced significantly this year, and we continue to actively work on further reductions. Improvements in recruitment and retention of our own workforce and improvements in hospital handover times are reducing our need for external support, and our strategy going forward is to meet demand without the need for private providers.”

Dr Liz Peretz, chair of Keep our NHS Public Oxfordshire said: “For many reasons we do not want ambulances to be in private hands. One is you need the service to be part of the NHS family. People are kept out of hospitals by a group of professionals including GPs and ambulance services.

"This won’t happen if you have private contracts outside the NHS. They are there for private profit – it’s what they exist for - to achieve profits for their shareholders. Inevitably it is all about money and profit. It’s driving in the wrong direction.”

Dr Peretz said privatisation needs to end and services already outsourced from the NHS should be brought back in-house. These include cleaning of hospitals, catering and facilities.

“We have had 14 years of savage austerity and pay has not kept pace,” she said. “That needs to change.

"The social determinants of health show that bad health outcomes are a result of poverty, bad housing and working conditions. This inequality must end."

Charlotte Bird, of Keep the Horton General campaign group, said: “With its enormous PFI (Private Finance Initiative) payments of millions a year, and the associated outsourcing of support services, the NHS in Oxfordshire is paying huge amounts to private companies.

"That money should be kept within the NHS for local services – services people can access easily. People in Banbury are totally fed up with being expected to endure the journey to Headington for childbirth and other medical needs that could, and should be provided here at the Horton General.”

Mo Akbar, an ambulance worker, told the GMB congress in Brighton this week: “This Labour Government will have a crisis of legitimacy if they choose a path of further privatisation of the NHS, which would put at risk the sense of the collectivism that is at the heart of our health service. We must be resolute in fighting for our National Health Service.”