Dear Mel Stride,
hope this finds you well, many thanks for your prompt reply last week on the NHS Bill.
I didn't expect to be writing to you again so soon but I feel I have to raise it.
The first thing which concerns me and many others is the tendering of Devon Children's Services and how it seems likely to go to a private sector provider based on their wealth rather than experience of managing and delivering said services. Children's care (and I am calling it "care" not healthcare as these are integrated services) is quite complex and it worries e to think that these under-funded, high risk services will be sold off to the highest bidder, one which will want to make money from them!
This is being reported in the press as a direct link to the NHS bill but it is linked a little further back to the need for PCTs to split their provider and commissioning functions, something I understand and agree needed to be done as there was obviously a conflict with a PCT effectively paying itself to provide services it also commissioned. But, to push these services to the private sector is rash and dangerous. This isn't as simple as privatising simple (bounded) services, services which can be made to generate profit. I am sure you know about this proces as it covers your constituency but I have not seen much about it in the mainstream other than the reports at the end of the week which seem to have been leaked in some way.
Has this process been mentioned/discussed in Parliament? Is it a done deal?
The second thing which concerns and worries me is the proposal to freeze public sector pay til it falls in line with private; to scrap national pay scales; to regionalise pay. Following recent freezes and pension changes this will be crippling for a good chunk of the workforce. The cost of living is rising - fuel, food, everything - and this would seem set to lead to repossessions and child poverty, etc.
In a rural constituency such as yours and indeed a county which has a substantial number of properties as holiday homes and hence house prices which do not reflect average wages, this must not be allowed to come to pass! If anything fuel duties should be regionalised to reduce the burden on the rural workforce.
Again, thanks for your time.
Yours sincerely,
Rich Mills
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