Eleanor defends NHS and Gordon gives speech Miliband should have

#TUC11 After Red Ed, Congress moved on to Health and Social care. UNISON President Eleanor Smith moved the Composite opposing the changes being to the NHS in England and Wales.

Contributions came from the wide variety of health service unions, including some newcomers to the TUC tent, like the Hospital Consultants and Specialists, now TUC affiliated. Welcome to the struggle brothers and sisters. Eleanor said:-

Southern Cross..WE TOLD YOU SO

The Southern Cross debacle was not one that was unpredictable. In fact it was UNISON that told us all so.

Care privatisation - time to call a halt

The revelations in last night's Panorama of abuse at a private residential unit has shocked the nation and rightly led to police arrests. Whilst this was a particularly shocking episode, concerns over care provision have rarely been out of the news in recent months. A UNISON Scotland blog post this morning from Dave Watson catalogues other examples and says, "It is surely time to call a halt to privatisation and undertake a detailed review of the future of care". http://unison-scotland.blogspot.com/2011/06/care-privatisation-time-for-change.html   See also Britain’s Private Care 'faces crisis’ - FT

Britain’s Private Care 'faces crisis’ - FT

A profound headline and a very interesting report in today’s FT which surveys the wreckage of the outsourced private care sector, as Southern Cross, the sector’s biggest company and employer of 30,000 care workers, is on the verge of collapse: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/307bbd3e-8af5-11e0-b2f1-00144feab49a.html#axzz1NwUMoqIG