08.02.12
Health and Social Care Bill returns to Lords
As the Health and Social Care Bill returns to the House of Lords, controversy and confusion concerning the legislation continues to grow.
A letter from 53 hospital trusts, published in the Times today, urges peers to support the reforms allowing them to earn up to 49% of their income from non-NHS sources.
It reads: “There are sound medical and clinical reasons for supporting this. It will enable us to bring much-needed additional resources into our organisations to benefit NHS patients.
“Examples of these benefits include developing treatment innovations and specialisms – such as complex paediatric treatment, robotic surgery, and employer-funded mental health treatment – and mean that trusts will be able to provide services on the NHS that can no longer be commissioned or are now rationed, including IVF.”
The medical and clinical directors of these trusts argue that without this amendment to allow hospitals to do more private sector work, they will lose potential income as well as the opportunity to expand and develop clinical services.
Health Secretary Andrew Lansley tabled over 100 amendments to the Bill last week, which will now be debated in the Lords, starting with ministerial accountability for the health service.
However, several prominent organisations are opposing the Bill, including the BMA, the RCN, the RCM, the RCGP and theInstituteofHealthcare Management. Liberal Democrat MPs are also demanding the publication of an independent risk report carried out into the reforms, which critics claim warned that the planned changes to allow GPs to commission health services on behalf of patients would lead to a surge in costs.
Chris Ham, chief executive at The King’s Fund, argues that an important weakness in the reforms is “the Government’s failure to value the role of managers and to recognise the vital contribution they make alongside clinicians in ensuring the provision of high quality care”.
He argues that putting doctors in charge of budgets “may bring some benefits but without the right support they are doomed to fail” and that, in the absence of effective management, “the performance of the NHS will suffer to the detriment of patients and the public”.
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