Health and Social Care Bill
Date: Tue 6th September 2011
This week the third reading of the Health and Social Care Bill will take place in Parliament. Over the past year the Government has sought advice from healthcare professionals and patients on these issues and I believe the proposed changes to the NHS are to be welcomed. I support this Bill and believe that it will benefit the NHS and those that use it for a number of reasons.
Firstly, this is not an attempt to privatise the NHS for profit but to provide an effective service that provides quality care for all. The previous Government also recognised this which is why it was not afraid to contract NHS services out to private providers, spending almost £5 billion on contracts in 2009-10 alone. What is important is that the NHS remains free at the point of use and these reforms will do just that.
The Government will protect the core values of the NHS, that patients will get the highest quality of care that is free at the point of delivery. Private providers will not be able to ‘cherry-pick’ services and competition will be based on quality, not price, better reflecting the needs of patients and not private providers.
‘Monitor’, the healthcare regulator, and a new NHS Commissioning Board will produce guidance on how choice and competition should be applied to services and Monitor’s powers will be strengthened to prevent bias. I believe that these changes will provide us with a more accountable and fairer NHS.
Despite the Public service cuts that we have had to implement, spending on the Health Service will increase under this Government. Money though is not enough, we need reform. These reforms will create a system of localised healthcare provision that reflects the needs of healthcare in Dartford. There are more opportunities for integrated care, greater safeguards on competition and stronger accountability. It is because of a desire to maintain the ‘patient comes first’ ethos that the Government is giving patients a choice of provision. I believe this will allow patients to get the most suitable care for needs.
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