Foundation hospital plans face Labour revolt
pharmafile | October 23, 2003 | News story | |Â Â Â
The Government is set to face a major revolt by Labour backbenchers against its plans for foundation hospitals, which have now been finalised.
Former Health Secretary Frank Dobson has gained the signatures of at least 80 English Labour MPs for his Commons motion against legislation needed to allow top hospitals greater autonomy by April 2004, unleashing what the Government call "the spirit of public service enterprise".
Announcing the plans to the Commons, Health Secretary Alan Milburn said the trusts would not be allowed to drain resources from the rest of the NHS by poaching staff or cutting prices to attract PCT service contracts.
He told MPs that the founding ethos of the NHS had many strengths but also "profound weaknesses" which foundation hospitals could begin to put right.
"Despite having the most equitable health care system in the world, health inequalities have widened, not narrowed. Uniformity in provision has not guaranteed equality in health outcomes. Local staff and local communities have too often felt disempowered by top-down control in the NHS".
Local people will now elect representatives to sit on NHS foundation trust boards of governors, and will have an absolute majority and work with representatives of staff and local stakeholders. The trusts would be barred from becoming private institutions, and will not be permitted to make a profit.
Around a dozen hospital trusts are expected to form the first wave of foundation trusts, all drawn from current three star performers.
Mr Milburn said: "This is not about elitism. It is about starting with the hospitals currently most able to benefit from the NHS Foundation Trust status. Forty percent of these three-star trusts serve some of the poorest communities in the country. As more hospitals improve, more will become NHS Foundation Trusts. There will be no arbitrary cap on numbers".
Frank Dobson said the proposals would in fact restore competition to the NHS, last seen in the Conservative's internal market of the 1980s.
David Hinchcliffe, Labour Chairman of the Commons Health Committee, said: "There is a fundamental problem about the Government direction of travel".
Shadow Health Secretary Dr Liam Fox broadly welcomed the proposals as being "market oriented" but said some details were "utterly unworkableand bsolutely meaningless".
