Government changes tender regulations
pharmafile | March 6, 2013 | News story | Sales and Marketing | GPs, NHS, coalition
The government has agreed to alter a key part of the Health and Social Care Act after GPs protested about its focus on competition in health commissioning.
The coalition has always rebuffed claims that it wants to introduce creeping privatisation into the NHS, and health minister Norman Lamb has now told MPs that part of the Act would be reworded.
GPs and royal colleges were among the groups putting pressure on the government to change the way section 75 of the controversial Act had been written.
Introduced last month, the disputed lines in the National Health Service (Procurement, Patient Choice and Competition) Regulations said commissioners can only award a contract without competition if they are “satisfied that the services to which the contract relates are capable of being provided only by that provider”.
Lamb agreed in the House of Commons that the wording would be changed to avoid any ‘misinterpretation’.
National Voices, a coalition of 130 health and social care charities, said the regulations as they stood “will have the effect of enforcing an NHS commissioning system based almost exclusively on competition”.
Critics argued that the wording meant that most NHS services would be open to competition from private companies.
This is at odds with assurances during the rocky passage of the Act through Parliament, when ministers had insisted competition would be only one of a number of routes open to commissioners to choose.
With the new clinical commissioning groups set to begin their work in earnest next month, the clarification has been welcomed by doctors.
Dr Clare Gerada, chair of the Royal College of GPs, said: “We are delighted – and relieved – that the government has listened to us and responded so quickly and positively.”
Gerada went on: “We now urge the government to work with us to develop an acceptable set of replacement regulations that will ensure GP commissioners have the freedom to make decisions in the best interests of our patients, and in line with the values that have underpinned the NHS for the past 65 years.”
The Academy of Medical Royal Colleges also welcomed the government’s decision saying it had “clearly listened to the concerns expressed”.
“We now await the revised regulations which we trust will address the concerns we expressed and more clearly align with the assurances given by the government during the passage of the Health and Social Care Act,” a statement from the body said.
Lamb made public the climb-down in response to an urgent question tabled by shadow health secretary Andy Burnham, who called it a ‘humiliating retreat’.
“I have listened to people’s concerns and my department is acting quickly to improve the drafting so that there can be no doubt that the regulations go no further than the previous set of principles and rules inherited from the previous Labour government,” Lamb concluded.
Adam Hill
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