NHS Reorganisation

Helen Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 16th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)]

In the devastation that followed the second world war, this country had the courage and the vision to realise the dream of a health service available to all in times of need. If the Government’s plans go ahead, that dream will die. [Interruption.] Yes, it will. It is not simply that the reorganisation represents a broken promise, which it does, or that it is costly, although it is, but that it strikes at the very foundations of the NHS. Indeed, if it goes ahead, there will no longer be a national health service, but a vast postcode lottery, with treatment depending on where people live.

[Henry Smith]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Helen Jones]

I am sorry—I have not got time. [Interruption.] Other Members are waiting to speak and I will not give way.

The market, not the patient will be king. That is being done under the cloak of localism—the Government’s current buzz word. Remove the cloak and we will see the realities: an NHS driven by the market, run by a vast, unelected and unaccountable bureaucracy, with accountability to Parliament greatly reduced.

The Government plan to give all commissioning to GPs. They conveniently ignore the fact that if GPs wanted to be managers, they would have taken MBAs rather than medical degrees. They will bring in other companies—mostly private—to do the managing.

[Nadine Dorries]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[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.