National Health Service (Amended Duties and Powers) Bill

Debate between Tony Baldry and David Anderson

Friday 21st November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Sir Tony Baldry]

May I remind the right hon. Gentleman of a document published on 31 October 2000, under the last Labour Government? The printout that I have is entitled, “A Concordat with the Private and Voluntary Health Care Provider Sector”. It is headed, “Socialist Health Association—Promoting health and well-being through the application of socialist principles”. It was a concordat introduced by the previous Government with the private and voluntary health care sector. It says:

“Introduction. There should be no organisational or ideological barriers to the delivery of high quality healthcare free at the point of delivery to those who need it, when they need it. The Government”—

the last Labour Government—

“has entered into this concordat with the Independent Healthcare Association to set out the parameters for a partnership between the NHS and private and voluntary health care providers. It describes a partnership approach that enables NHS patients in England to be treated free in the private and voluntary health care sector.

The key tests for any relationship between the NHS and private and voluntary health care providers is that it must represent good value for money for the tax payer and assure high standards of care for the patient. The involvement of private and voluntary health care providers in the planning of local health care services at an early stage will enable the NHS to use a wider range of health facilities within their locality. To achieve this Health Authorities in their strategic leadership role will be expected to ensure that local private and voluntary health care providers are involved in the processes designed to develop the local Health Improvement Programme as appropriate.”

And it carries on. The document is headed, by the last Labour Government, “Socialist Health Association…A Concordat with the Private and Voluntary Health Care…Sector”. Indeed, the last Labour Secretary of State for Health signed a concordat with the Independent Healthcare Association on 31 October 2000.

The decision to make greater use of private sector facilities for NHS patients did not require new legislation and it was possible to undertake it within the existing legislation on the NHS, but for the avoidance of doubt let me quote the Labour party manifesto from 2001. In the chapter on NHS reform, Labour promised to

“work with the private sector to use spare capacity, where it makes sense, for NHS patients”

and to

“create a new type of hospital—specially built surgical units, managed by the NHS or the private sector—to guarantee shorter waiting times”.

In my constituency, we have an independent orthopaedic treatment centre run by the private sector and introduced under the Labour Government. We have a Darzi walk-in centre run by private GPs, which was also introduced during the time of the Labour Government.

[Mr Anderson]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving way in his long diatribe. He quotes the 2001 Labour manifesto, but it also said that any relationship with the private sector would not be at the expense of the terms and conditions of the staff working in the private sector who were transferred out. Today, Care UK people who work in Doncaster are facing a 40% cut in their take-home pay. Does he not see that that is one of the consequences of the Health and Social Care Act 2012?

[Sir Tony Baldry]

With respect, I think the hon. Gentleman is seeking to avoid the point, which is that the 2012 Act did not fundamentally change the situation in the NHS between the public and private sectors. I draw the House’s attention to a debate that took place in Westminster Hall in 2002 on the subject of the private sector in the NHS that was initiated by the then Chair of the Select Committee on Health, the then Member for Wakefield, David Hinchliffe. The Minister, John Hutton, made a speech in response that could easily have been made in identical terms by the Under-Secretary of State for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Dr Poulter). John Hutton said:

“I do not want to repeat arguments that have already been made about the future of our relationship with the private sector, but I shall deal with some more specific points. My hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield was concerned about whether reference costs provide a sufficient measure of value for money in the NHS. We accept that they do not, and we have tried to set out in our report several ways in which we can strengthen reference cost data.”

He went on to say:

“My hon. Friend also referred to the evidence that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State gave to the Committee. He set out four essential tests that we apply to each prospective partnership in the NHS and private sector. Is it in the interests of patients? Is it consistent with the local and national strategies of the NHS? Is it value for money? Is it consistent with public sector values, including that treatment is determined by clinical need and staff are treated fairly? Those are the yardsticks by which we will judge and develop our relationship with the private sector. Provided that those tests are satisfied, we should use the private and voluntary sector where it has a track record of achievement or where it can offer clear potential gains.”—[Official Report, 11 July 2002; Vol. 388, c. 354WH.]

I have absolutely no doubt that those are views that my hon. Friend the Minister would endorse today. It is an entirely sensible approach to how the NHS and the private and independent sector should work. The National Health Service Bill passed during the Session of 2005-06 further enshrined the relationship between the national health service and the private sector in statute.

The Bill promoted by the hon. Member for Eltham misses the point. The Health and Social Care Act did not and does not introduce competition into the NHS, it does not change the rules on when to tender competitively and there is no requirement to tender all services. What it does do is manage the competition that has been introduced.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Anderson]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sir Tony Baldry]

I have given way to the hon. Gentleman once, and as the hon. Member for Easington (Grahame M. Morris) accused me, ungallantly and unfairly, of filibustering—even though everything I have said is relevant and to the point—I would like now to make a little more progress and come to my final point, or almost my final point.

NHS (Public Satisfaction)

Debate between Tony Baldry and David Anderson

Wednesday 30th March 2011 Westminster Hall

[Tony Baldry]

Again, that is a slightly bizarre argument from the hon. Gentleman. There has been much talk about competition in the NHS, which is surprising as the Labour party appeared to be in favour of competition in its own election manifesto. The coalition Government have made it clear that the only competition that will exist in the NHS is competition on quality, not price. The Secretary of State could not have made that clearer in the House when he said:

“At the point when a patient exercises choice or a GP undertakes a referral, the price of providers will be the same. By extension, competition must be on the basis of quality.”—[Official Report, 16 March 2011; Vol. 525, c. 387.]

To deal with another misrepresentation, EU competition law already exists and the health reform proposals do nothing to change that. They do not, in any way, extend competition law. The Bill makes it absolutely clear that any competition can only be on quality, not on price. In any event, I find it strange that the Labour party and others suddenly seem to be coming forward to express concerns about the private sector in the NHS, when it was the previous Labour Government who, for example, in Banbury set up a privately run, privately managed, privately owned independent treatment centre and a privately managed, privately owned independent Darzi GP centre. The previous Labour Government, bizarrely, gave the private sector—because their contracting was so poor—some £250 million for operations that were never carried out. However, given that they have left the NHS with an overdraft of £60 billion, I suppose that they would consider £250 million thrown away on operations that were never actually carried out as, possibly by their standards, small change.

We have to realise, with an ageing population, more extensive treatments and new drugs becoming available, that we have to tackle bureaucracy in the NHS. We need to reform the NHS to make sure that it is as efficient and as effective as possible. We are ensuring that patients have choice—choice based on quality and from whom they receive care. There is simply no issue on this, in that the Labour Party said in its manifesto at the general election, and I am sure that the hon. Member for Leyton and Wanstead has read it:

“Patients requiring elective care will have the right, in law, to choose from any provider who meets NHS standards of quality”.

We have made it absolutely clear, under the coalition Government, that the NHS will remain free at the point of need, paid for from general taxation, and be based entirely on need, not on the ability to pay. Those are fundamental principles of the NHS. They have been fundamental principles of the NHS ever since it came into being, and the coalition parties are, I am sure, determined not to undermine, in any way, any of the rights in the NHS constitution. Indeed, the coalition Government are seeking to protect the NHS, throughout the duration of the Parliament, by increasing NHS funding by £10.7 billion. A substantial number of GP groups, all over England, have volunteered as pathfinders to demonstrate how GP commissioning can work. GPs throughout Oxfordshire are coming together to form a suitable GP consortium.

Let me tell the House what is being said by those in my constituency who are involved in the GP consortium. Local GP Dr Judith Wright, who is co-ordinating the north Oxfordshire GPs, has said:

“Andrew Lansley’s proposals will give power to local GPs to decide how that budget should be spent to meet local health needs. Priorities will be decided by doctors through a process informed by patients, local authorities, public health and secondary care”.

Dr Wright went on to observe:

“I believe that GPs are best placed to be able to meet this challenge. Collectively they know the health needs of their local population. They can act as a catalyst for change. They will have a role in deciding the destination of local services and the route to get there.”

Andrew McHugh, who is the practice manager at Horsefair surgery in Banbury, observed:

“The health budget is a finite resource. Andrew Lansley’s proposals will give power to local GPs to decide how that budget is spent in order to meet local health needs. Priorities will be decided by doctors through a process informed by democratically accountable public and patient involvement. We need to be looking for innovative ways of spending the health budget wisely.”

In a recent issue of Prospect magazine, Ali Parsa pointed out that, as a nation:

“We used to spend 3 per cent of our GDP on healthcare in the 1980s…6 per cent in the 1990s, 9 per cent now and on our way to 12 per cent.”

In the current financial climate, that is unsustainable. Business as usual is not an option. We need to review what treatments are provided to ensure they are clinically effective and cost-effective—in other words, evidence-based practice. I think that Dr Judith Wright and Andrew McHugh’s comments are extremely balanced and sensible.

[Mr David Anderson (Blaydon) (Lab)]

I just came from a meeting of the British Medical Association about two hours ago. Its members asked me very clearly to pass this message on to the party on the Government Benches: will they please stop using the fact that GPs are becoming involved to suggest that they support the moves? They see becoming involved in terms of having no alternative—they say that it is being forced on them and that they are becoming engaged in the interests of their patients, not because they believe in what is being done.

[Tony Baldry]

May I suggest to the hon. Gentleman and to others that they actually start listening to what is being said? They might start by noting what was said in their own election manifesto. They might start listening to what the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State are saying on the Floor of the House of Commons, and the hon. Gentleman might as well do them the courtesy of just listening to what GPs in my constituency are saying on the record. It is clear that he is not listening. If he wishes to have a dialogue of the unlistening, that is a matter for him. The changes that the NHS needs are straightforward: less waste, more involvement, power to GPs and front-line doctors, nurses and other health professionals, and putting patients first. There is not really an intellectual divide on this matter. Indeed, the shadow Secretary of State earlier observed:

“The general aims of reform are sound—greater role for clinicians in commissioning care, more involvement of patients, less bureaucracy and greater priority on improving health outcomes”.

I could not have put it better. As for less bureaucracy, ever since the coalition Government came to office, one of the things they have cut in the NHS is bureaucracy. That has resulted in 2,000 fewer managers since the general election, but, interestingly, 2,500 more doctors.

I have every confidence in the Secretary of State for Health. He and his ministerial team, while we were in opposition, took considerable efforts to visit Banbury on a number of occasions to understand the challenges being faced by the Horton general hospital and to meet with GPs. As he observed to local GPs before the general election, GP commissioning will enable those GPs in north Oxfordshire, south Northamptonshire and south Warwickshire who wish to send their patients to the Horton hospital to do so, confident that the money will follow the patient.

Again, I do not think it surprising that the shadow Secretary of State should have observed:

“No one in the House of Commons knows more about the NHS than Andrew Lansley—except perhaps Stephen Dorrell. But Andrew Lansley spent six years in Opposition as shadow health secretary. No one has visited more of the NHS. No one has talked to more people...in the NHS…these plans are consistent, coherent and comprehensive. I would expect nothing less from Andrew Lansley.”

If Opposition Members are not willing to listen to me, perhaps they would be willing to listen to the shadow Secretary of State.

The Secretary of State, when in opposition, visited my constituency at least three times, and I believe I am correct in saying that every member of the Government ministerial team in the Commons visited my constituency at least once, to understand the challenges and needs of hospitals such as the Horton. The Royal College of General Practitioners said that it believes that there should be more clinical commissioning. Even the British Medical Association has confirmed that it believes that GP-led commissioning is the right way forward. Indeed, the only opponents to the proposals appear to be the Labour party and the trade unions, but, given what the Labour party did when it was in office, and what it stated in its manifesto and even more recently, one can only conclude that, now that it is in opposition, it seeks to jump on every passing bandwagon, feels obliged to say whatever will keep the trade unions happy and seeks to block every sensible reform.

The views of the trade unions on all of this are as depressing as they are, perhaps, predictable, and in the category of trade union I also place the BMA. It is right to recall that the BMA opposed GP fundholding, longer opening hours for GP surgeries, which clearly would have been for the benefit of patients, and foundation hospitals. In fact, I cannot think of a single NHS reform over the years which it has not opposed, or a single one on which it has been in the vanguard.

No one pretends that health care systems around the world are facing anything other than enormous challenges. That is no less so in the UK. We need to be sure that patients and taxpayers get the best value possible for every pound spent in the NHS. We need the best possible outcomes in the NHS, whether for stroke victims, heart attack victims or those who have long-term medical conditions. The reforms are about building on the strengths of the NHS, improving it and making it better able to tackle the challenges of the 21st century. That is how we will ensure that people will rightly continue to be supportive of, and satisfied and happy with, the NHS, which we all want to be the best possible health service in the world.