{"id":627118,"date":"2026-06-08T07:00:27","date_gmt":"2026-06-08T07:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/627118\/"},"modified":"2026-06-08T07:00:27","modified_gmt":"2026-06-08T07:00:27","slug":"anger-over-plan-to-privatise-some-wiltshire-nursing-roles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/627118\/","title":{"rendered":"Anger over plan to privatise some Wiltshire nursing roles"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n BSW Hospitals Group was formed a year ago as a partnership between Swindon\u2019s Great Western Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Royal United Hospitals Bath NHS Foundation Trust, and Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n

\n By law, the group has to consult Wiltshire Council<\/a> when setting priorities, planning changes to services, and commissioning community provision because health services in Swindon and Wiltshire are now planned and overseen jointly by the NHS and local authorities.\n<\/p>\n

\n At a meeting of Wiltshire Council\u2019s Health Select Committee on Tuesday, June 2, members heard the group had decided to move all of its \u2018bank\u2019 staff \u2013 those who pick up flexible shifts to cover staff absences or increased demand on the NHS \u2013 from NHS employment to Pulse, which is part of the multinational private healthcare provider Acacium Group.\n<\/p>\n

\n Bank staff include roles across nursing, midwifery, and \u2018allied\u2019 health professionals, as well as administrative, catering, and ancillary staff.\n<\/p>\n

\n The deal comes into force on August 1.\n<\/p>\n

\n BSW Hospitals Group said the move would save the NHS between \u00a33.3 million and \u00a35.4 million through a reduction in the employer pension contributions.\n<\/p>\n

\n NHS staff receive an employer contribution of 23.7 per cent \u2013 but under the Pulse deal this will be reduced to six per cent.\n<\/p>\n

\n In a written representation, the Salisbury branch secretary of trade union UNISON, Mark Wareham, said the move \u201ctransfers a core NHS staffing function to a private, profit-driven provider.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cThere is no indication that the private company bring any more expertise or capacity to run a bank service to the three Trusts other than that which already exists in the in-house teams that currently run the three services,\u201d he said.\n<\/p>\n

\n He added: \u201cThe decision was taken despite formal collective opposition from recognised trade unions.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n He asked councillors to \u201ccall NHS Trust executives to account for the workforce and equality implications of this decision,\u201d and \u201cwrite to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care to raise these concerns formally.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n Responding, Jude Gray, chief people officer at BSW Hospitals Group, said the decision to outsource to Pulse had been taken to \u201creduce reliance on high-cost agency staffing,\u201d and \u201cincrease fill rates for temporary shifts.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n She added: \u201cBSW Hospitals Group does not consider this change to represent the privatisation of NHS clinical services.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n Debating the matter, Cllr Sam Blackwell (Liberal Democrat, Bradford on Avon North) said: \u201cThis is a very substantial reduction in benefits. Is this to ensure the wards are better staffed, or to achieve a cost saving?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n Cllr Chuck Berry (Conservative<\/a>, Minety) said the law required the group to bring this decision to its local authority scrutiny panel.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cThe worry for me is that if it all goes terribly wrong and there are strikes, the potential is that we\u2019ll get blamed for that,\u201d he said.\n<\/p>\n

\n Committee chairman Jane Davies (Conservative, Marlborough West) said the matter had been a \u201ccontentious and difficult issue.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n The committee decided not to bring the lack of consultation to the Health Secretary.\n<\/p>\n

\n Instead, it voted to draw up a \u2018consultation protocol\u2019 between BSW Hospitals Group and the council.\n<\/p>\n

\n And it asked that the company return to the committee to give an update on temporary staffing levels in early January 2027, to \u201cprovide assurance that the changes have not affected services to residents.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n At the same time, UNISON will be invited to give a report on the impact on staff.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BSW Hospitals Group was formed a year ago as a partnership between Swindon\u2019s Great Western Hospitals NHS Foundation…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":627119,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[102,2960,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-627118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-health","tag-healthcare","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=627118"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627118\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/627119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=627118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=627118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=627118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}