A YORKSHIRE NHS Trust plans to launch a wholly owned subsidiary to provide health services against orders from the NHS nationally and in the face of widespread objections from staff.

Bradford NHS Foundation Trust is forming the subsidiary to avoid paying taxes.

Staff such as cleaners, porters and maintenance workers will be transferred from the NHS to the subsidiary.

Unions have warned that the move will lead to downgrading wages and conditions for the transferred workers.

The prediction has become reality at Bolton in Greater Manchester.

Bolton NHS Foundation Trust’s wholly owned subsidiary has refused to implement a nationally agreed NHS pay increase giving the lowest-paid NHS staff a 10 per cent rise – nearly £2,000 a year.

The Bolton subsidiary is proposing just 2 per cent. Staff at the Trust will strike for 48 hours from October 11.

Bradford is ignoring a call from national governing body NHS Improvement to put its plans on hold.

MPs Imran Hussain, John Grogan, Judith Cummins and Naz Shah have condemned the Trust, while its decision has outraged public service union Unison, which has campaigned vigorously against subsidiary companies.

Unison’s regional head of health Tony Pearson said that union members are considering action.

“The work our members do is absolutely vital to the medical treatments being administered,” he said. “The Trust now appears to be hell-bent on doing this, whatever anyone says.

“We will continue fighting these plans in Bradford and building the widest possible opposition to them among communities, politicians and our members who serve the public so well every working day.”

Peter Lazenby is the Morning Star’s Northern Reporter.