Thank you for contacting me about the Health and Social Care Bill. I do appreciate your interest in this information and with such good healthcare provision in Milton Keynes I do understand the worry that is being caused by the upcoming changes.
I believe that the NHS is our most precious national asset and I can assure you, nothing in the Government's reforms undermines the NHS's founding principles - a health service, free to all, funded from general taxation, based on need and not ability to pay.
The NHS faces ever increasing challenges, from an ageing population and rising costs of new treatments and medicine. That's why the Government is increasing investment in the health service by an extra £12.5 billion per year by 2014-15. This will help in the short term but I believe that the Government's plans for modernisation are essential to put the NHS on a sustainable footing for the future.
The Health and Social Care Bill represents the most radical decentralisation of power that the NHS has witnessed in its history. It delivers three changes - changes that could only be achieved through legislation; patients right to choose; power to frontline staff; and giving NHS organisations the freedom to organise themselves as they see fit.
The NHS currently has no legal obligation to improve the quality of care continuously. There is no legal duty to reduce health inequalities. Local councils have no role in developing the strategy for healthcare services in their local areas and the rights to determine how the NHS's budget is spent do not currently sit with doctors and nurses, the frontline staff who know how best to use it. Legislation is needed to remedy all of these issues.
Competition and improved patient choice can have an important role in driving up better quality care. It is a myth that the Bill introduces a free market or represents an attempt to privatise the NHS. The Bill does not change EU or UK competition and procurement legislation. What the Bill does do is ensure that the NHS is a properly regulated sector so that all services - be it the NHS, charitable groups or the private sector - will have to focus on what is best for the patient.
I can assure you that the Bill is aimed at ensuring competition is used appropriately - it is not the answer for all services, and the Bill makes provisions for the right kind of competition that promotes quality and better integration of care around the needs of patients. The Bill proposes that Monitor, an independent body, will protect and promote patient's interests by promoting economy, efficiency and effectiveness in the provision of healthcare services. Monitor and the NHS Commissioning Board will regulate prices in the interests of patients.
Through the independent NHS Future Forum the Government has already had hundreds of meetings, discussions and public debates with thousands of people on the future of the health service. Failing to modernise the NHS would undermine the development of clinical commissioning and prevent healthcare professionals taking decisions in the interests of their patients. The reforms are based on what NHS staff themselves have consistently said - they want more freedom from day to day bureaucracy and political interference so they can get on with the job of caring for patients. I believe this is exactly what this Bill achieves.
The Department of Health has already published risks relating to the Health and Social Care Bill in the Combined Impact Assessment, updated on 8 September 2011, which can be found at the following address
http://www.dh.gov.uk by searching for "combined impact assessments."
It is important to note that risk registers detail the worst-case scenarios-both actual and theoretical. For this reason, it would not be in the public interest to release risk registers as they would place a misleading emphasis on the negative aspects of policy which could cause public debate to be focused on these worst-case scenario risks however unlikely they may be. Additionally, releasing these risks could increase the likelihood of their occurrence.
The decision would have significant implications and set a precedent for all departments and future governments. It is for these reasons that during the course of the last Government requests to see risk registers were declined in July 2008, in September 2008, and in September 2009.
I assure you that the government is committed to departmental transparency. Since the Coalition has come to power, the Department of Health has published more information on how it runs, including salaries above £150,000, departmental spending data, all new government ICT contracts, all new central government tender documents for contracts over £10,000, new items of central departmental spending over £25,000, Government Procurement Card transactions over £500 and all new central departmental contracts are to be published in full.
The Department has sought to expedite the process of appeal, and as a result, the Tribunal has been moved forward from 5 April to 6 March.
