NHS campaigners staged a ‘tug of war’ between private healthcare and patients in Enfield Park, Camelford, on Saturday, July 17.

The stunt was in protest against the Health and Care Bill which passed its second reading in the House of Commons on July 14 — legislation which campaigners have branded a “corporate takeover Bill”.

As part of the tug of war, one team dressed as Virgin founder Richard Branson, Serco CEO Rupert Soames, health secretary Sajid Javid and Baroness Dido Harding. The other team included patients, doctors and nurses.

NHS campaigners have claimed that the forthcoming Health and Care Bill will increase the private sector’s involvement in the NHS and have called for the new health secretary to withdraw the legislation.

Among concerns raised by campaigners are the proposed changes to the rules for contracting NHS services. Presently, Section 75 of the 2012 Health and Social Care Act requires a process of compulsory competitive tendering for NHS services. The government’s new legislation would end this requirement, which campaigners claim would make it much easier for services to be contracted to the private sector without checks and balances.

Further concerns have been raised about proposals for new ‘Integrated Care Systems’ (ICS) boards — new bodies within the NHS designed to bring together all bodies working within the health service to work on public health strategy. However, campaigners have warned that the forthcoming Bill would allow private companies to sit on such decision making boards, arguing that this creates potential for conflict of interest.

Local campaigner Helen Wood, who organised the stunt in Camelford said: “I was shocked when I heard about the details of the government’s plans for our NHS. With the year we’ve had, our precious health service should be being invested in and cared for.

“Instead, the government is planning to open the NHS up to further privatisation, with profit hungry companies being given a seat at the decision making table. We’ve already seen disastrous instances of private companies delivering health care and failing, and the last thing we want is to see our healthcare system be undermined by the very American corporations that fail to deliver health care except to the rich in the United States.

“We’re campaigning today to stop this outrageous attack on our health service. We want our NHS to be run for all of us, not in the interests of private companies.”

The stunt in Camelford took place alongside dozens of others in towns across the country — organised by We Own It.

Pascale Robinson, We Own It’s campaigns officer said: “Over the last year, our NHS has been the lifeblood of our country — keeping so many of us safe during the pandemic. The last thing it needs right now is a dangerous and damaging overhaul which would put the private sector at the heart of our health service.

“One of the most worrying aspects is the prospect that for-profit private companies — the likes of Virgin Care and Serco — could be sitting on boards making calls on where NHS money gets spent. This private oversight of our healthcare would undermine the principles at the core of the NHS.

“If the government cares about the future of our NHS and what the public want from it, they should rethink and withdraw this reckless Health and Care Bill. We cannot allow this corporate takeover to go ahead.”

A petition launched by We Own It in opposition to the Health and Care Bill has received more than 58,000 signatures.