NHS bill may need fresh scrutiny from MPs after ‘listening exercise’

Lansley admits the bill may need ‘recommittal’ for more scrutiny after changes, delaying its passage through the Commons The changes to the government’s flagship NHS bill could be so substantial that it has to undergo fresh scrutiny by MPs – delaying its passage through the Commons, the health secretary said on Monday. The bill has already passed through the committee stage, where it was scrutinised line by line by MPs, but the proposals have been paused for a “listening exercise” with NHS staff and the public. A panel of experts, known as the Future Forum, was tasked with hearing concerns about the bill – a process that ends next week. In an online question and answer session with Guardian readers , the health secretary, Andrew Lansley, answered a post about “recommitting” the bill to the house. “We won’t decide that until we have received the NHS Future Forum report and have responded to that. I told the House of Commons on 4 April that we would ensure proper scrutiny of the bill – we have done that so far and we will continue to do so,” he wrote. Nick Parrott, a public policy consultant who posed the question, emailed to say the last time anything close to it happened was 2003 “on the hunting bill when the house voted to fundamentally change the bill at report stage – banning fox hunting rather than licensing it. But that was very different, not least because it was a free rather than whipped vote.” Parrott said that before 2003, legislation was recommitted in 1951 with the mineral workings bill and two years earlier with a criminal justice (Scotland) bill. Lansley appeared at ease on the Guardian’s NHS live blog – posting 17 times in an hour in a wide-ranging discussion. He told readers he had never used private healthcare: “I always use the NHS.” He acknowledged that the duty of the health regulator, Monitor, should be to “promote the best interests of patients” rather than to promote competition as originally proposed – conceding ground to the deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg. The health secretary said that although GPs were a good starting point for commissioning, they might need help from others – signalling another retreat. “When it comes to designing specific services, they will need to work with others who have the right expertise, like specialist nurses and hospital doctors,” he said. He explicitly ruled out suggestions that his bill was about privatisation and said it would “not allow any new charges”. He acknowledged there had been “failures” and that there was “misinformation and misunderstanding” surrounding the bill. He defended his plans to end the secretary of state’s duty to “provide” a comprehensive health service – a flashpoint with critics who claim he wants to wash his hands of the NHS. He said his expert committee were looking to see if the bill could be made “stronger”. “It didn’t say the secretary of state should ‘provide’, because the bill intends that the secretary of state should delegate the responsibility and provision of this duty to the NHS Commissioning Board. This is one area I know the NHS Future Forum are looking at to see if the legislation can be stronger,” he said. NHS Health policy Andrew Lansley Health Public services policy Rowenna Davis Randeep Ramesh guardian.co.uk

Posted by on May 23, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.