The future of health services across Cambridgeshire will be decided at a series of key meetings in the next few months, when new Government rules could force privatisation on to the agenda.

Labour’s Parliamentary candidate for Cambridge Daniel Zeichner is urging local people to let decision-makers know that key services should remain within the NHS:

“The Government’s changes to the NHS have been very controversial and most people will be baffled by the complex and impenetrable new bureaucracy that has been created. A handful of people will be making decisions over the next few months that will have a major impact on the way many vital local health services, including services at hospitals like Brookfields in Cambridge, are provided.  The Cambridgeshire Community Services Trust will be considering options at their board meeting in early June and I hope will take account of public views.  I get no sense that either the public or health service professionals  want to see services privatised.  The changes introduced by the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats in Government are creating wholly unnecessary uncertainty and damaging morale at a time of huge stress on our health services.”

A Transition Steering Group has been established to oversee the future of thousands of staff working for Cambridgeshire Community Services. Their current employer failed in a bid for Foundation status last year and under Government rules staff will have to be transferred to other organisations by April 2014. The latest briefing from the Steering Group confirms that “By the end of May 2013, all commissioners aim to have… clarified how they will commission services and what type of procurement mechanisms they will use to identify alternative providers. This procurement could involve either a competitive tendering process or commissioning services from an organisation following any agreed transfer of CCS services/staff.”