NHS (Private Sector)

Stephen Dorrell Excerpts

Monday 16th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Andy Burnham]

I agree that the cap varied according to historical levels of private sector activity within the different trusts. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right about that, but he must agree that it was clearly defined in respect of every individual NHS hospital. They had a clear number and local people were able to hold them to account for that number. Where hospitals had large numbers, the cap froze their level of activity at the level when the cap was introduced.

[Mr Stephen Dorrell (Charnwood) (Con)]

Just to be clear, could the right hon. Gentleman explain why it is in the interests of NHS patients in a particular hospital for that hospital’s capacity to generate additional revenue from the private sector to be limited by a cap?

[Andy Burnham]

I will explain that very clearly. I am sure the right hon. Gentleman will have read the impact assessment to the Bill, which warns of the risk of lengthening NHS waiting lists if existing capacity is made available to private patients. It says that if additional capacity is provided, there might be no effect on NHS waiting lists. That is why this is dangerous, because all the progress that Labour made on reducing long NHS waits would be put at risk by the careless and cavalier policy of simply abandoning the principle of the cap, which has stood us in good stead.

[Mr Dorrell]

rose—

[Mr Simon Burns]

rose—

[Andy Burnham]

I shall give way to the Chairman of the Select Committee on Health once more and then to the Minister.

[Mr Dorrell]

I apologise to my right hon. Friend on the Front Bench. Could the right hon. Gentleman explain more clearly than he has so far why a hospital should reduce capacity at the same time as it is increasing revenue?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Stephen Dorrell (Charnwood) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Easington (Grahame M. Morris). He and I are both members of the Health Committee and, surprisingly perhaps, we more often find ourselves in agreement about the objectives that we are trying to deliver than is obvious from the nature of the debates across the Floor of the House.

I shall focus my remarks on the speech by the shadow Health Secretary. I have some quite good news for him—he was a far better Secretary of State than he himself appears now to believe. As Secretary of State, he did not allow himself to fall victim to the kind of prejudices that have been ventilated this evening. Tonight, he fell into the old trap of eliding two concepts and pretending that they are the same. The two concepts are, on the one hand, privatising the health service, and on the other, involving the private sector in the improvement of care available to patients. As Secretary of State, he was well able to distinguish between those two concepts and pursued policies of involving the private and voluntary sector when there were opportunities to improve care for patients. He now prefers to forget the fact that during his time as a Minister we not only heard plans for involving the private sector in improving the care delivered to patients but saw an open-minded attempt to bring in the private sector to improve the process of commissioning in the health service. That was what world-class commissioning was designed to deliver. We are now asked to turn our mind away from all those ideas.

I, like my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, am in favour of tax-funded care for patients. I am in favour of equitable access to high-quality care, like my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and like the shadow Health Secretary. I am also, however, in favour of plural provision, looking for the best solution for patients and the best value for taxpayers. In that respect, I am, as the shadow Health Secretary used to be but apparently no longer is, a straightforward Blairite. This was the breakthrough that Tony Blair taught the Labour party that it now appears to have forgotten. It was Tony Blair who advocated the introduction of private hospitals into the delivery of care and Tony Blair who stressed the importance of the third sector in finding new ways of improving care for patients, yet it is now my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State who has to pick up the Blairite torch that has been so unceremoniously dropped by the shadow Health Secretary.

It is worth reflecting, is it not, on whether this Blairite consensus is the inevitable consequence of the principle of commissioning—

[Andy Burnham]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Dorrell]

I would be delighted to.

[Andy Burnham]

If the policy that the Secretary of State is pursuing is a continuation of our policy in government, why do the Government need many hundreds of pages of legislation and a new Bill?

[Mr Dorrell]

The right hon. Gentleman is in danger of creating another consensus. Indeed, there is a debate about whether the Bill moves things forward as far as the rhetoric suggests. I am on the record many times saying that the claims made for the Bill by, if I am honest, both the Government and the Opposition spokesmen are grossly overstated. It introduces greater engagement by clinicians in commissioning and greater engagement by local authorities in commissioning through the health and wellbeing boards, and those are good things. I agree, however, with the tone of the right hon. Gentleman’s last intervention: the new world is not quite as far removed from the old as he sometimes likes to suggest and as he suggested in his speech.

Let us focus for a second on what it means to have commissioners in the health service. When the shadow Secretary of State has more time one day, I would like to hear him talk us through the process, which he would, on occasion at least, advocate, of turning down a good idea that is brought to a commissioner to improve care for patients and good value for taxpayers because that idea comes from the private sector. I hold no brief for the private or public sector in the delivery of care; I hold a brief for tax-funded equitable access to higher quality care from whomsoever provides that care. That is what I mean when I say that I am a straightforward Blairite and I look forward to welcoming the shadow Health Secretary back into the fold.