Clegg calls for further delay to Health Bill
pharmafile | May 27, 2011 | News story | | Health and Social Care Bill, NHS reforms
The government should amend its NHS reform plans and then allow them to be scrutinised further by MPs, the Deputy Prime Minister has said.
In a speech to University College London Hospital, Nick Clegg said he wanted the Health and Social Care Bill to be sent back to MPs after major concessions are made next month.
Changes to the reforms seem inevitable and Clegg, whose Liberal Democrats form the minority partner in the coalition government, gave the clearest signal of their expected scale, saying the government is “accepting that we now need to make changes – in some cases, significant ones”.
Concessions will most likely include a greater focus on collaboration rather than competition in the NHS, a clause in the Bill that has proven deeply unpopular.
“People want choice,” he said, “but providing that choice isn’t the same as allowing private companies to cherry-pick NHS services.
“It’s not the same as turning this treasured public service into a competition-driven, dog-eat-dog market where the NHS is flogged off to the highest bidder.”
Clegg said that competition can help drive up standards, but warned it is not an end in itself.
“That’s why, as [health secretary] Andrew Lansley confirmed earlier this week, the main duty of Monitor, the health regulator, will not be to push competition above all else.”
Monitor’s main duty will be to protect and promote the needs of patients, Clegg said, using collaboration and competition “as means to that end”.
GP role to be watered down
Also on the likely list of concessions will be the role of GPs, who are currently set to takeover from Primary Care Trusts and control the majority of the NHS budget by 2013.
Their role will most likely be watered down with the adoption of an ‘integrated care’ approach, allowing other health professionals to sit alongside GPs when commissioning services.
Both the BMA and even the Royal College of GPs have come out against GP-led commissioning, saying they believe PCTs should remain.
Clegg said he wanted to see PCT managers stay to help emerging GP consortia, supporting them in areas where they are not yet ready.
“Yes, family doctors should be more involved in the way the NHS works,” he said, “But they should only take on that responsibility when they are ready and willing, working with other medical professionals too.”
His speech came at the end of a six-week ‘pause’ in the passage of the Bill, during which government promised to listen to concerns raised about the reform.
Clegg conceded that the Bill would now be sent back to repeat its committee stage in the House of Commons in order for MPs to debate the new changes.
This will a blow to Lansley, the architect of the reforms, who had hoped to speed the Bill through Parliament.
Ben Adams
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