UNION members are celebrating as controversial plans to let private companies bid to run back-up services at the new Blackburn super-hospital have been shelved.

The plans were part of the Private Finance Initiative scheme to replace Blackburn Royal Infirmary, which will allow a private firm to build a £70million extension to Queen's Park Hospital and rent it to the NHS Trust.

Companies will be invited to bid for the contract this week, and proposals are expected from all over Europe.

Union bosses claimed the decision made two months ago to put catering, portering and domestic services out to tender at the same time could affect 400 workers.

NHS chiefs have now told Blackburn, Hyndburn and Ribble Valley NHS Trust to drop the plans to let companies bid to manage the extra departments.

Companies will now only be able to bid to run basic services including maintenance, engineering and grounds, and services already contracted out such as car parking and security. Unison representative David Pilkington, who is a senior supervisor in the domestic and portering department, said: "We are elated. This is good news but we still have members who will be affected. We are still negotiating on their behalf. We would like to see everyone working direct for the NHS."

He said the in-house catering, portering and domestic departments had proved they provided value for money by winning bids against private companies in the past.

Simon Neville, NHS Trust project manager, said the Trust had always wanted to keep as many services as possible "in-house" and so had decided to ask companies to bid for two sets of services.

The first set included the maintenance departments and contracted-out services, while the second list included all those services as well as catering, portering and cleaning.

But although the NHS Executive approved the twin-bid system at first, it has now decided the system is too expensive for bidders.

Mr Neville said the Trust had now decided to leave out the extra services, as they already provide value for money according to benchmark tests.