King's College Hospital staff balloted to halt sell-off

The Unite union announced that it will be balloting its members at the south-east London hospital on industrial action within the next fortnight.

The NHS foundation trust's directors are proposing to set up a private-sector company with the pathology services at St Thomas's hospital alongside the notorious outsourcing giant Serco, the union reported.

This new company would take on services worth tens of millions of pounds annually and employing nearly 1,000 staff.

Unite fears that the planned privatisation will break up a 300-strong world-class department that has taken decades to build and would impact on services to patients.

It argued that the secrecy and protectionism practised by the private sector could drastically curtail much of the hospital-based research in leading medical schools such as King's College Hospital.

The union, which holds the majority of members there, is also being backed by Unison and the Federation of Clinical Scientists, which have written to management to ask for the plans to be halted on behalf of their members.

Unite national officer for health David Fleming said: "There seems to be no rhyme or reason why a world-class pathology service that carries out two million tests a year and has an excellent reputation has to be hived off to the private sector.

"It smacks of the triumph of dogma over common sense, hence the industrial action ballot."

The hospital's management plan is to have the new company up and running by October 1.

Unite national executive member and biomedical scientist Frank Wood said: "Pathology staff take years to train and need constant development and training to keep pace with rapid scientific changes.

"Diagnostic services of the standard based at King's require constant reinvestment to match and anticipate the pace of clinical needs and research. To siphon off any portion of this for marketing and profit will inevitably affect the quality of patient care," added Mr Wood.

A spokeswoman for King's pathology services said: "We are proposing changes to pathology services at King's with the aim of protecting staff jobs while continuing to deliver a high-quality blood and tissue testing service."