Health and Social Care (Re-committed) Bill

Debate between Debbie Abrahams and Fiona O'Donnell

Tuesday 6th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[Debbie Abrahams]

No, I will make some progress.

The listening exercise failed to register the concern of many health professionals. Despite what the Government say, many health professionals feel very concerned about the amended Bill. Instead, the Government changed Monitor’s duty from one of promoting competition, as set out in the first version of the Bill, to one of preventing anti-competitive practice. The lawyers will have an absolute field day with that one. The Government talk of reducing bureaucracy, but I think we will see even more bureaucracy as a result of this.

[Fiona O'Donnell]

Does my hon. Friend recall, as I do, that time and again in the recommitted Bill Committee we asked Ministers and Professor Field what the impact of that change would be? We are still waiting for a satisfactory answer.

[Debbie Abrahams]

There are many unanswered questions about the Bill, which makes it particularly dangerous.

By opening up competition under the guise of increasing patient choice and clinician-led commissioning, the Government are trying to increase both demand and supply for these services, but the implication for a single-payer health system with a fixed budget, such as the NHS, is that this will inevitably lead to financial meltdown. The only way this can be avoided is by injecting extra capital into the system and the Bill achieves this in many ways. We need to look at not only this cluster of amendments but all the amendments and clauses in the Bill as a whole, because they are interrelated.

First, the Bill allows foundation trusts to borrow money from the City to invest. This is supported by the opening up of EU competition law. Foundation trusts are currently social enterprises and are exempt from part of EU competition, but this opening up will open the flood gates. It means that the trusts will have to compete for tenders with private health care companies. They will have to repay the money they have borrowed by treating more and more patients, including private patients, which will be aided by the abolition of the cap on income from private patients. However, many foundation trusts will still struggle, so the Bill introduces a new insolvency regime to enable private equity companies to buy NHS facilities and asset-strip them, which has direct parallels with the demise of Southern Cross.

Secondly, waiting lists will go up. We are already seeing that across the country, including in my constituency. We have seen that already because unrealistic efficiency measures mean that cash-strapped primary care trusts are rationing access to treatment such as cataract surgery and hip replacements.