Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he plans to prevent hospital trusts from transferring estate and facilities staff out of the NHS and into wholly-owned subsidiary companies.

National Health Service organisations are responsible for deciding locally the most appropriate structures they need to deliver services to their patients within available resources and powers. There are therefore no plans for central bodies to prevent hospital trusts from making local decisions using legislation enacted in 2004 to transfer estate and facilities staff out of the NHS and into wholly-owned subsidiary companies where there are sound operational advantages of doing so.

Staff who are compulsorily transferred from an NHS organisation to a subsidiary company retain their employment terms and conditions, and access to the NHS Pension Scheme, in accordance with HM Treasury’s New Fair Deal policy and Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) legislation.