Prime Minister David Cameron was widely reported to have directly intervened in the midst of concerns about deep unhappiness and unpopularity among rank-and-file Liberal Democrat MPs and their party leader Nick Clegg ahead of next month’s local and regional elections in which the party is expected to suffer huge losses.
Health Secretary Andrew Lansley denied any such strategic or party political considerations and said the move was prompted in recognition of “genuine concerns” and a need to provide greater clarification about what the reforms will entail. He admitted the speed with which the legislation was being introduced had caused genuine anxiety and the time had come to slow the pace and better explain. The Health Secretary said 43 GP consortia had already successfully applied to replace their healthcare trusts.
In a bid to regain some of the political initiative, David Cameron and Nick Clegg intervened and stepped up their efforts to reassure critics of the proposed new structures and of Mr Lansley’s handling of them. Mr Clegg insisted the two-month “listening” exercise was not presentation or spin but could lead to “substantive” alterations.
Both Labour and Lib Dem grandees such as Baroness Shirley Williams say that this marketisation of NHS services and provision means the service, by definition, will be subject to the European Union’s competition law.
The cross-party Commons Health Committee chaired by former Tory Health Secretary Stephen Dorrell said the bill required a great deal more than “minor tweaking” and urged a major re-think including a bigger role for nurses, specialists and social care chiefs in deciding how services should be designed, together with tighter, independent, systems of governance and accountability to locally-elected councillors.
The Nye Bevan Society condemned Mr Lansley’s “natural break” on progress of the health reforms as a “ploy to take the wind out of the sails of those trying to protect the National Health Service from destruction at the hands of this Tory-led coalition and urged Labour leader Ed Miliband to withdraw all parliamentary co-operation on the Health and Social Care Bill.
