Two days of crucial debate in the House of Commons began against a background of noisy and determined “Save the NHS” protests up and down the country.
More than 500 GPs signed a petition calling for the bill to be withdrawn. The Medical Practitioners’ Union, part of Unite, said it showed that Prime Minister David Cameron was wrong when he claimed Health Service professionals were “right behind” the “so-called reforms”.
Dr Ron Singer, president of the MPU, said: “This nails the ministerial canard that because GPs have signed up to Clinical Commissioning Groups they support the bill. GPs have signed up to ensure they have the necessary resources to treat their patients, not because they support the proposed reorganisation of the NHS.”
Unison was concerned that the
Tories were trying to “frogmarch” 1,000 amendments through the House in two days during the third reading.
Dave Prentis, the union’s general secretary, said: “The dangers lurking in the Bill cannot be ignored – despite the Government’s denials, it will push the door wide open for private companies to come in and take over chunks of our National Health Service. We know the Department of Health has been talking to Helios, the German management company, about taking over the running of 10 to 20 NHS hospitals. The bill also removes the legal obligation of the Secretary of State to provide a comprehensive NHS.”
Andrew Lansley, the beleaguered Secretary of State for Health who, it is understood, will be moved in the next government reshuffle, accused his critics of “ludicrous scaremongering”.
But Dr Hamish Meldrum, chairman of the British Medical Association, warned in an open letter co-signed by the Royal College of Nurses of an “inappropriate and misguided reliance on market forces to shape services”.
And John Healey, Shadow Health Secretary, hammered Mr Cameron and Mr Lansley by saying that “despite the unprecedented pause, and the NHS Future Forum’s demolition job on the bill, the chorus of criticism has grown as doctors, nurses, patient groups and health experts digested the detail of the reorganised reorganisation and concluded that the Government is failing to properly safeguard the NHS.
“During and after the so-called listening exercise, David Cameron made much of his willingness to pause, listen and reflect. Nick Clegg, meanwhile, boasted of major concessions to the original plans – plans he signed off last year. In reality, what happened in June was a political fix, more concerned with the future health of the coalition than the future health of the NHS.
“The changes to the bill have left it more complex, more costly and less likely to help the NHS meet the financial and service challenges it faces. Meanwhile, many essential elements of the long-term Tory agenda – to break up the NHS and set it up as full-scale market – remain in place and need further challenge.”
