NHS Reorganisation

Ben Gummer Excerpts

Wednesday 16th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Paul Blomfield]

I am afraid that I will not; I said that I would give way once and then make progress.

I hope that the Government will take their own advice and listen to doctors, because yesterday the doctors spoke clearly and powerfully with one voice, despite reports that we have seen that under the proposals, doctors could earn up to £300,000. At the first emergency conference of the British Medical Association in 19 years, they sent a clear message to the Government: “Think again.”

Five of Sheffield’s hospitals are in my constituency, and I want to focus on the consequences of ending the cap on private income earned by hospital trusts without providing any safeguards. As hospitals face squeezed budgets, they will inevitably look at every opportunity to enhance their income. At one level, they might see the chance of offering additional services such as en suite facilities to those who can afford to pay, but at another, more damaging level, we need to recognise that in Sheffield and across the country, patients are now being refused non-urgent elective surgery. There are increases in waiting times for knee and hip replacements, and for cataract, hernia and similar operations. Those are not operations for life-threatening problems, but they are hugely important for people’s quality of life. Access to that sort of surgery at the earliest point of need transformed the lives of tens of thousands of people under Labour. Those operations may not be life-critical, but delaying them condemns people to pain and immobility.

[Ben Gummer (Ipswich) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Paul Blomfield]

No. I have said it once: I have given way, and will not give way again, because I want to make progress.

The Government’s plans mean that as we return to the days of long waiting lists, in will step the health insurance companies, perhaps with their links to new commissioning bodies, which will pitch to those who understandably want the assurance of prompt treatment when they need it. There would be a self-reinforcing cycle: more patients would go private to escape worsening NHS services, and NHS providers would then prioritise private patients, worsening services further. Before long, the NHS would be changed beyond recognition. Its founding principles of free and equal treatment for all who need it would be fundamentally undone. No wonder that the chair of the Royal College of General Practitioners has attacked the plans as

“the end of the NHS as we currently know it”,

or that the Royal College of Midwives has said that

“this could accelerate the development of a two-tier service within foundation trusts, with resources directed towards developing private patient care service at the expense of NHS patients.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Helen Jones]

I have said no. The hon. Lady was not even here for the beginning of the debate.

It is not sufficient for the Government to ensure that private companies determine our health care; they will also introduce EU competition law into the NHS. That means that the private health companies that are currently hovering over the NHS like a bunch of vultures will threaten legal action if services are not put out to tender. They will then cherry-pick the services in which they can make the most money—they do not want to do geriatric care, paediatrics or A and E. That will fatally wound and undermine local hospitals and some, no doubt, will go to the wall. It is no surprise that the Health and Social Care Bill includes detailed insolvency provisions.

Some hospitals will bring in more private patients to fill the gap, because the Bill lifts the cap on private patients. We will therefore have the absurd situation of private companies making decisions on health care, and of NHS staff and facilities being used not for those most in need, but for those with the ability to pay. There is a word for that and it is not often used in this House: it is quite simply immoral. It is also indefensible.

At the same time, these plans will undermine our ability to deal with long-term conditions. Progress has been made on conditions such as stroke through co-operation, not competition. It has been made through stroke networks, by sharing expertise and by reconfiguring services to get the best deal. All the expertise in primary care trusts on delivering those services will be swept away.

[Ben Gummer]

rose—

[Helen Jones]

I have made my view clear, so the hon. Gentleman is wasting his time. The expertise will be swept away, and the plethora of GP commissioning consortia will have no strategic overview of these services.

There has always been a democratic deficit in the NHS, but the Bill will increase it vastly. It will give £75 billion to £80 billion to unaccountable consortia. It will remove from the Secretary of State the requirement to secure the provision of services. I say to Government Members: when the services go, do not come here to complain because the Secretary of State will not be responsible any more. The NHS commissioning board will be appointed by the Secretary of State and he will be able to dismiss its members at will. It will have no independence. Monitor will not have a single elected member.

The Bill does not give power to patients, and it does not empower health service staff. Kingsley Manning of Tribal summed it up cleverly as a Bill to denationalise the NHS. It is not supported by doctors, and it is not supported by patients. I say to the Liberal Democrats that if they go through the Lobby tonight in support of this reorganisation, people out there will not forget and they will not forgive.