UNION members have criticised plans to move NHS staff into the private sector when Queen's Park Hospital and Blackburn Royal Infirmary merge on to one site in four years' time.

Staff from the works department at the two hospitals, who are set to be transferred to Balfour Beatty are worried that the move is the first on the slippery slope to privatisation of a public service.

The move to private management will happen once the new £86 million extension to Queen's Park is built, at least six months before it is open.

Around 60 staff are expected to be transferred, although their terms and conditions will stay the same.

Project management for the single site scheme say they do not expect to see any redundancies, despite the merger of a team which is currently on two different sites.

Dill Eccleston, chairman of Blackburn Staffside health union, said: "The works department will be taken over, and they are talking about 2004, but we will have to wait and see.

"It is a big issue for us. We are the only ones affected in this. PFI is the start of privatisation, because the public will be paying for the hospital for the next 30 years.

"I don't know how many staff are aware that they will be losing the works department from the NHS. The work we do now will be charged as extra, which I don't think is value for money."

Blackburn Unison branch secretary Karen Narramore,said: "The unions feel very strongly about this, and so do our patients.

"They want the NHS to be run by a directly-managed workforce. Staff from the works department, who will move into the private sector, are particularly concerned about it.

"They joined the NHS to work for the NHS, not a private company. We haven't got any major concerns about it, but obviously, they would much prefer that there was no transfer of staff at all.

Single site project manager Jackie Hadwen said: "In a private finance scheme like this, once the new hospital is built, it will be owned by Balfour Beatty, and as such it is their responsibility to maintain it, and obviously they need the staff to do that.

"Both Balfour Beatty and ourselves are maintaining that position and will be doing everything we can from now until 2005 to ensure there are no redundancies as a result of this.

"The trust board did take a decision to exclude soft services such as portering and domestic services, but because of the link with the life cycle of the building and the maintenance of it, the transfer is very much part of the profile of the PFI.

"It doesn't make it any easier on the staff involved, but we hope that we and the trust board are handling the issue sensitively."

More than 100 staff from the two hospitals signed postcards which will be sent to Prime Minister Tony Blair in an effort to highlight moves towards more privatisation of the service.

The day of action was part of a national campaign, Public Services Day, which saw unions representing health staff join together to celebrate public services and lobby against them being privatised.

The Trade Unions Congress, Unison and Staffside had organised the campaign to be staged at hospitals across the country for staff and patients to voice their concerns over the elements of privatisation creeping into the NHS.

Miss Narramore added: "The day was very successful and was partly to celebrate our public services. The majority of people were supportive of the moves by the union.

"It does have a knock-on effect. When doctors and nurses and people like that are being transferred outside the NHS, when you start fragmenting the NHS, it does inevitably have an impact on patients."

The national campaign is also lobbying on all issues surrounding privatisation, including democratic accountability, adequate funding and fairness at work.