But to date only 26 out of 530 NHS trusts have reached a settlement on a pay award due from last April and some 200 NHS employers have yet even to make an offer.The system, Mr Abberley said, was "a shambles". Ballots for industrial action were starting to be held and "we are going to have at the back of this year what we tried to avoid last year - some industrial action".Even some NHS employers are describing local pay as "a fiasco". Stephen Dorrell, Secretary of State for Health, said the Government, in its evidence to the review body, would be seeking "maximum discretion for meaningful local negotiations" over nurses' pay. Bob Abberley, Unison's head of health, said that "the Government does not learn by experience". Last year the review body recommended a 2-per-cent national award, to be topped up locally. The move came under heavy fire last night from Unison and the Royal College of Nursing.

Nurses should receive no national across-the-board pay rise next year, the Government is to tell their pay-review body shortly. Instead, it says, nurses' pay should be determined purely locally by NHS Trusts, writes Nicholas Timmins. Under the deal the federation is considering, however, trusts would merely help promote Norwich Union's product, not bear the financial risk of underwriting the cover.Yesterday, however, he said of the proposed Norwich Union deal that its acceptability would "depend a bit on the way it is promoted". Sources at Norwich Union said the scheme would build on Trust Care, a policy it already markets which limits cover to care in NHS pay beds, whose charges in general are lower than those of private hospitals.Bob Abberley, head of health for Unison, the public sector union, condemned the potential deal.

"This is the shape of things to come under the Tory NHS," he said. "It just proves that what we have been saying about increased privatisation is happening before our very eyes.". "If there is a particular scheme which we see as of benefit to us and particularly to our patients, it would be wrong of us not to promote it," said Mr Cereste.Trusts would help sell the product by telling patients wanting private cover that they would be "supporting your local NHS hospital" by taking a policy which would specifically cover them for treatment in NHS pay-beds.Trusts would also emphasise the safety of private treatment in the NHS where the back-up of a full district general hospital is available on site - including the intensive care and other facilities - which many private hospitals lack.Earlier this year, Stephen Dorrell, the Secretary of State for Health, stamped on proposals that NHS Trusts should enter tie-ups with private insurers to provide their own branded private medical insurance for patients.That, he said, was "no part of the Government's plans for the NHS" and could not be introduced without "an unacceptable risk to public funds". But Marco Cereste, its chairman, said yesterday there was "definitely a deal to be done". The arrangement could in time see NHS hospitals actively promoting Norwich Union cover to patients - the first time in the service's 50-year history that it would have actively promoted private health insurance to patients. This would threaten both NHS services which are subsidised by the profits the NHS makes from treating private patients, and put at risk Private Finance Initiative deals to build new NHS hospitals, which in some cases rely on revenue from private patients as well as the health service.The likely deal with Norwich Union - and possibly other smaller private insurers - is the Trust Federation's attempt to hit back at Bupa and preserve its private patient income.The package has yet to go to the Trust Federation's council for approval. The controversial move follows a decision by Bupa earlier this year to offer its subscribers cover in a network of "preferred provider" private hospitals, which excludes NHS pay beds. The NHS Trust Federation claims that move could cost the NHS pounds 50m over four years in lost income from Bupa private patients.

NHS Trusts are poised to strike a deal with Norwich Union, Britain's third biggest private health insurer, which could see trust hospitals promoting the sale of the company's policies to patients. We didn't want to change the name in the way that nuclear power stations change their name."The school has about 500 pupils but was built for 1,000.A spokeswoman for Shandwick Communications said the fact that the school had employed the firm showed its commitment to the relaunch No one at the school was available for comment.. In April 1995 it was declared "failing" by the schools' inspection body, Ofsted. In January this year Ms Harman, who lives a mile away, announced that she was sending her son to Olave's School in Bromley.Her decision caused a political furore, with Conservatives seizing the opportunity to denounce Labour for hypocrisy - the party's education spokesman, David Blunkett, had said there would be no more selective schools under a Labour government.Ms Harman and her husband had already sent their elder son Harry to The Oratory, the grant maintained school attended by Tony Blair's son, Euan.Last night Gordon Mott, Southwark's director of education and leisure, said the Harman affair had added to William Penn's problems."The school did not feel it assisted its cause, but it added to its determination to show the world that some parents make mistakes," he said."The key issue was ensuring that the kids there get the best education possible. Southwark Council has paid pounds 80,000 for three new computer networks and a facelift of its buildings.The school has endured 18 months of disastrous publicity. Harriet Harman's local comprehensive school has hired a public relations firm and changed its name to smarten up its image. The former William Penn comprehensive in Dulwich, rejected by Labour's health spokeswoman in favour of a selective school 10 miles away, will be relaunched next week as Dulwich High School for Boys. Its governors have paid an undisclosed sum to the Knightsbridge-based Shandwick Communications to oversee the reopening of the school.