Derry Councillor sounds alarm over costs spent on private ambulance services
People Before Profit councillor Shaun Harkin has criticised a five-year, £50 million spend on private ambulance services while tabling a motion calling for the NHS to be protected.
At July’s Full Council Meeting councillor Harkin noted that £10 million was paid to private companies in 2024 alone, and proposed that council write to the Health Minister, Mike Nesbitt, calling for a stop to what he claimed was the “stealth privatisation” of the health service.
The motion stated: “This Council fully supports the concept and practice of a publicly-funded NHS/Health and Social Care Service providing free care from the point of delivery.
"Council notes the damage inflicted on all aspects of the NHS/HSC by Westminster and Stormont over many decades through privatisation, outsourcing and underfunding.
“Council notes with alarm that more than £10m was spent on private ambulance companies in 2024 and almost £50m over a five-year period.
“Council will write to the Health Minister expressing our alarm at these figures and calling for all available public funds to be spent on expanding NIAS frontline services and internal recruitment, instead of being drained away into the bank accounts of private companies.
“Council will write to the Health Minister calling on him to stop the stealth privatisation of the Health Service and to express our support for the trade union demand for the NI Ambulance Service to be properly funded for emergency and non-emergency ambulatory care.
“Council notes the 'hospital flow' crisis resulting in increased handover delays at emergency departments and will write to the Health Minister expressing our support for the trade union demand of a 45-minute maximum handover time for NIAS crews.
“Council will write to the Western Trust/NIAS for a full breakdown of its financial spend and reliance on private ambulance companies for Altnagelvin Hospital and Western Area over the last 5 years.
“Council will invite representatives of Unison and UNITE for a presentation on ambulance services and their demands.”
Speaking at the meeting, councillor Harkin said the Health Service was "vital for our communities" but was facing “tremendous challenges”.
“Because," he claimed, "there has been an orchestrated plan from Westminster to privatise the health service and destroy it.
"And the challenges to our health care workers speak volumes about the impact of that drive towards privatisation over many years.
“The Stormont Executive in many ways has went along [with it] and the trade unions who represent the workers have a straightforward argument; that money that is available for frontline services should be invested into frontline services.
“Those frontline services are the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service (NIAS), that's where money should be going, and it shouldn't be siphoned off.
“We have a Health Minister that is regularly telling us how little money there is and this is only one example of where we have public money being spent on private companies.
“This is compounding the crisis and the challenges that our health service face, so this motion is a message that the stealth privatisation of the health service needs to stop and that we need to beef up the capacity of the ambulance service as it is.”