NHS Commissioning Board

Alison McGovern Excerpts

Tuesday 5th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Norman Lamb]

Competition should only ever be used to enhance the interests of the patient and to improve patient care; it is not an end in itself, and that must always be the case. These regulations will ensure that that is the case and that other vital factors such as co-operation and integration must be taken into account by CCGs in making their judgments.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

This top-down reorganisation has, from day one, been a chaotic waste of time, money and effort. Now that the Minister has made a U-turn, will he make things clear, so that I can tell all the professionals and patients in the Wirral what his policy is? Will he say when he will bring to this House a statement of what the Government’s policy is on competition in the NHS?

[Norman Lamb]

I repeat that we will be publishing amended regulations within days and that the Government’s reforms are about putting the clinician centre stage in decisions about how money is spent, rather than unaccountable bureaucrats, as happened in primary care trusts up and down the country. The reforms are also about ensuring that the patient’s interests and patient care are always uppermost in the minds of everyone making decisions about the use of money in the NHS.