13.06.11
NHS Future Forum reports back
The final report of the NHS Future Forum is being received at Downing Street today by David Cameron, Nick Clegg and Andrew Lansley.
The Government is expected to accept most of its recommendations for changes to the Health & Social Care Bill, including its very first sentence – which would have removed the legal obligation on the Health Secretary to “provide and secure the provision of” healthcare, which the holder of that role has had since the founding of the health service after the Second World War.
The NHS Future Forum has been conducting a two-month investigation since the legislation was ‘paused’ and the listening exercise began. Most of its other likely recommendations have become common knowledge, for example the abandoning of the 2013 deadline for consortia to take over from PCTs as commissioners of care, and the altered role for regulator Monitor.
Clegg has claimed to have achieved victory in 11 of the 13 areas demanded by a motion at the Liberal Democrat spring conference, which was the catalyst for the amendments to the reforms.
But many Conservative backbenchers, angry at seeing their Coalition partners trying to take all the credit for the amendments which they see as watering down the reforms, have hit back over the weekend. Among them was Nick de Bois, who accused the Lib Dems of “kindergarten politics”.
But Clegg’s chief political adviser, Norman Lamb MP, told the BBC: “This is not a case of triumphalism. This is a case of improving the policy.”
The detailed Government response to the NHS Future Forum report is expected tomorrow.
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