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Tom BrakeLiberal Democrat MP for Carshalton and Wallington |
This Bill was passed by Parliament on 20th March.
The reform of the NHS is clearly a really important issue and Liberal Democrats have worked hard to make the Bill as effective as possible. The NHS is facing new challenges of an ageing population and rising treatment costs. If we do not make changes now, we will leave our children with a weak and unaffordable NHS that cannot provide the level of service we want.
It is important that we make changes to deliver more care in our local communities rather than hospitals, to ensure we maintain a sustainable, comprehensive health service for years to come.
The main aim of the reforms is to take power out of the hands of middle managers and put it into the hands of those who know patients best - the doctors and nurses. This will be done by setting up new Commissioning Groups, made up of doctors and other professionals, which will be able to make decisions about their local NHS, so that it suits local people.
The important thing to remember is that the NHS will remain free at the point of use and always available to everyone. Liberal Democrats will never let the NHS be privatised - and these reforms do not do that. In fact, under Labour, private companies were given special favours and were paid 10% more than the NHS for work undertaken. However, Liberal Democrats made sure the Coalition's reforms put a stop to that.
When the reforms were first proposed last year, Liberal Democrats were not happy with all the suggestions. We agreed doctors and nurses should have more power, but were worried about some issues like too much competition. We demanded several key changes that were needed to protect the NHS and the Government accepted our ideas, including:
- No promotion of competition. The number one priority is the interests of patients
- Health Ministers are still accountable. The Secretary of State for Health will be politically and legally accountable for a comprehensive national health service.
- No decisions behind closed doors. Liberal Democrats made sure the Commissioning Groups will be open, accountable, required to meet in public and subject to Freedom of Information.
- No favours for the private sector. It will be illegal to deliberately favour the private sector. Labour gave private companies 'gold plated' contracts and paid them £250million for operations they didn't even perform. Liberal Democrats have put a stop to this.
In the past few months the Government also passed amendments that address concerns raised by Nick Clegg and Liberal Democrat Baroness Shirley Williams. As a result of this, Competition Commission reviews have been removed from the Bill to make sure the NHS is never treated like a private industry.
In addition to this the NHS will be shielded from the worst excesses of competition law and we have increased accountability by insisting members of clinical commissioning groups must declare any financial interests so that integrity is maintained. The Government also agreed that any proposal to increase the proportion of total income earned from non-NHS work in a Foundation Trust by 5% or more will now have to be voted for by a majority of governors.
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