War Against Private Patients Hots Up

By George Aldridge

THE union was against special accommodation for private patients in National Health Service hospitals was hotting up again today .Now one of the main Health Service unions National Union of Public Employees is to question the legality of special wards or wings for private patients.

They intend to put the question to Mrs. Barbara Castle, Minister of Social Services. And they wil ask the six M.P.s sponsored by the union to the table questions to Mrs. Castle in the Commons.

Mr. Alan Fisher, the union’s General Secretary, and a former Birmingham union official, said today:: “the original Act allowed hospitals to set aside special accommodation for private patients.

“But that was amended by the 1968 Act.Parliament’s intentions was that private patients should be treated in ordinary wards alongside National Health patients.

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