Jobs across Wycombe Hospital and Stoke Mandeville will be privatised next month, Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust has said.

A total of 30 NHS staff working at the urgent treatment centres in the two hospitals will be transferred to FedBucks, a federation of 47 GP practices in the county.

The private company, which is described as a ‘social enterprise’, is chaired by Dr Penny Macdonald, who is married to Neil Macdonald, the chief executive of the Trust.

The Trust said the transfer of the 30 staff to FedBucks would help reduce waiting times for patients in its emergency department and improve the quality of the service.

However, some of the staff who will be transferred, as well as colleagues who work with them, have expressed concerns about the privatisation of their jobs.

“I want to be in the NHS,” one of the staff told the Local Democracy Reporting Service, “I like working for the NHS. I like to look after my patients.”

Speaking anonymously, they added: “I could go and earn double the amount of money that I earn at other places. But I don’t want to do that. I want to be there for my patients in the NHS.”

The 30 NHS staff who will be transferred to FedBucks on November 20 include emergency nurse practitioners, clinicians, and so-called primary care ‘streamers’, who allocate the appropriate level of care for patients based on the severity of their illness or injury.

The contract given to the company was previously stated as being worth £8 million on a public tender notice but the Trust has declined to confirm this.

Although the contract was put out for public tender, the Trust has consistently maintained that FedBucks was its ‘preferred provider’ and told staff in letters on Monday that it had awarded the contract to the company.

The letters, from an NHS director, tell staff that FedBucks is a ‘not-for-profit’ organisation which already works with the Trust.

They describe the company as an ‘expert’ in primary care, which will ‘bring together under one team our two UTCs, as well as our out of hours service, to provide the best possible care for the residents of Buckinghamshire’.

However, staff, including the person who spoke to the LDRS, have warned that patient safety may be compromised by privatising the roles of the 30 NHS employees.

The individual said: “They will be more focused on how long it takes to treat a patient than on the quality of the time spent with that patient.”

Unison also warned about the effects of privatisation on the quality and safety of the service in a letter it sent the Trust last month about FedBucks taking on the contract.

It read: “Profit making for private companies is often achieved by cost-cutting, such as not employing adequate numbers of staff, or employing staff on reduced terms and conditions.

“With this action, the Trust will be putting the service at risk and skilled experienced staff into difficult situations.”

The union also warned that FedBucks would be able to change the terms and conditions of the affected staff’s contracts, potentially increasing the risk of experienced NHS employees leaving the profession.

Another concern was that staff will face fresh ‘uncertainty’ under the private provider, given that the end of the current contract period is March 2026.

The Trust has said the transfer is necessary to ‘deliver best practice, and consistent quality of care’ and to tackle delays, particularly at Stoke Mandeville.

It also argues that giving the contract to FedBucks will reduce the reliance on agency and locum staff, reduce costs to make the best use of taxpayers’ money, and will help ‘build and grow one team’ across the two UTCs.

A spokesperson for the Trust said: “The Trust specialises in providing acute and community care. Thirty per cent of the patients who come to our emergency department have conditions which could be treated by primary care clinicians (GPs) leaving the emergency department to look after those who are acutely unwell.

“In line with national best practice recommendations the Trust therefore made the decision to work in partnership with one organisation employing all staff delivering urgent treatment centre services, both at Stoke Mandeville and Wycombe hospitals.”

Asked about the relationship between Mr and Mrs Macdonald, the spokesperson added that David Highton, the chair of the Trust, was satisfied that the correct procedures to manage any conflicts of interest had been followed.