SCOTTISH trade unions have united in their resolve to fight privatisations in health and social care.

At the first session of the annual Scottish Trades Union Congress (STUC), delegates not only rallied to the defence of Scotland’s NHS, but railed against the SNP-Green Scottish government’s long-standing proposals for the creation of a national care service (NCS).

Aberdeenshire Unison’s Audrey McCabe slammed the scheme, telling comrades at Dundee’s Caird Hall: “The NCS is not a plan for better care. It is a press release that has got out of control.”

Unison has long been critical of the proposals for the service, which it argues give the impression of an NHS-style publicly owned and accountable organisation, but in reality would leave most of the country’s care sector and their workers in the hands of the voluntary sector and private enterprise.

Key points of opposition to the legislation focuses on national sectoral bargaining — or lack of it — a loss of local democratic accountability and proposals which could leave council social work departments as not the default provider of care services, but merely potential contractors.

While the Scottish government has publicly stated those proposals in the Bill will be changed, unions became further enraged when they remained in the wording taken through its first reading in Holyrood last month.

Fears of growing privatisation were not confined to the already fractured social care sector however, as delegates backed a motion on what the North Lanarkshire TUC described as the “backdoor privatisation” of Scotland’s NHS.

The motion called for the STUC to build on successes such as its recent research detailing how Holyrood could raise over £3bn in additional cash for public services through progressive tax measures.

It also suggested researching and producing a report into “backdoor privatisation highlighting the companies, organisations, and individuals who are seeking profit from the NHS in Scotland.”

Moving the motion, North Lanarkshire TUC’s Drew Gilchrist — himself an NHS worker — told delegates that such a report would be vital to building a campaign not only to halt privatisation of the NHS in its tracks, but to reverse it and secure investment in services and workforce.

Mr Gilchrist warned congress: “On privatisation it is clear that Scotland can no longer hide behind the idiom ‘it’s better than down south’.”