Nick Clegg under fire over health reform ‘victory’

Tories accuse deputy PM of ‘kindergarten politics’ after Lib Dems briefed he would toast amendment successes Nick Clegg has been accused by the Tories of resorting to “kindergarten politics” after the Liberal Democrats briefed that the deputy prime minister would declare victory when the amended health service reforms are published on Monday. In a sign of growing resentment among Tory backbenchers, whose newest members will express their frustration to David Cameron at a meeting, an influential voice turned on the Lib Dems. Nick de Bois, the Tory MP for Enfield North, the 1922 committee’s unofficial voice on the NHS reforms, told the Guardian: “The NHS is too serious a policy issue to warrant all the kindergarten politics witnessed this weekend from our partners. We should focus on the policy not the politics and from what I have seen so far I am encouraged and am looking forward to seeing the detail of the reforms.” The Future Forum report by Professor Steve Field is due to be published on Monday. Field was appointed to lead the “listening exercise” on the NHS reforms after the health and social care bill was paused. Clegg is planning to tell his MPs and peers that the Lib Dems have secured a famous victory after ensuring that their “loud voices” have been heard. Field is expected to announce that: • The main duty of Monitor, the health service regulator, will be promoting patients’ interests and not competition. It will promote competition only if that helps patients. • A 2013 deadline for the creation of new GP-led consortiums, initially designed to take control of 65% of the NHS budget, is to be relaxed. • The membership of the consortiums is to be opened up to include hospital doctors and nurses. Clegg will tell his parliamentary party: “We have achieved all we set out to achieve. It is a job well done.” The Tories were irritated when the Lib Dem leadership published a “scorecard” showing the party has secured 11 of the 13 changes its conference demanded. A source close to Clegg said: “Nick will now be able to present his colleagues with the scorecard and tick off each of their 13 objectives. They’ll be there for all to see. We’re expecting the parliamentary party to be pretty pleased with the result. We have won.” But the party later toned down its rhetoric. Norman Lamb, senior parliamentary adviser to Clegg, said it was not talking about winning. Lamb, the former health spokesman who threatened to resign unless changes were made, told BBC1′s Politics Show: “It’s not a question of people winning things, I just think we raised a number of very serious concerns, concerns that were shared by many people within the health service and the health policy world. I’m satisfied the concerns raised have been met. It’s been a very constructive process.” Field will publish his report on Monday afternoon. Clegg, Cameron and the health secretary, Andrew Lansley, will give the government’s formal response at a joint event at a hospital at midday on Tuesday. De Bois made clear that a series of “red lines” he emailed to colleagues last month must remain in place: GPs must take charge of commissioning, and the 2013 target must be met to avoid creating a two-tier health service. De Bois, who was involved in the committee stage of the health and social care bill, said: “I am hopeful the fundamentals will remain in place. While the early indications are that there are positive improvements, it is critical to the future of the NHS that the main pillars of the reforms are kept in place because we are talking about the future of our health service here.” Lib Dem scorecard Nick Clegg claims that he has secured eleven of the 13 changes demanded by his party at its spring conference in March. This is his scorecard: 1. More democratically accountable commissioning. Secured. 2. A much greater degree of co-terminosity between local authorities and commissioning areas. Secured. 3. No decision about the spending of NHS funds to be made in private and without proper consultation, as can take place by the proposed GP consortia. Secured. 4. The complete ruling out of any competition based on price to prevent loss-leading corporate providers under-cutting NHS tariffs, and to ensure that healthcare providers ‘compete’ on quality of care. Secured. 5. New private providers to be allowed only where there is no risk of “cherry picking” which would destabilise or undermine the existing NHS service relied upon for emergencies and complex cases, and where the needs of equity, research and training are met. Secured. 6. NHS commissioning being retained as a public function in full compliance with the Human Rights Act and Freedom of Information laws, using the skills and experience of existing NHS staff rather than the sub-contracting of commissioning to private companies. Secured. 7. The continued separation of the commissioning and provision of services to prevent conflicts of interests. Secured. 8. An NHS, responsive to patients’ needs, based on co-operation rather than competition, and which promotes quality and equity not the market. Secured. 9. Uphold the NHS Constitution. Secured. 10. Ensure full scrutiny, including the power to require attendance, by elected local authorities of all organisations in the local health economy funded by public money, including foundation trusts and any external support for commissioning consortia; ensuring that all such organisations are subject to FoI requirements. Secured. 11. Ensure health and wellbeing boards (HWBs) are a strong voice for accountable local people in setting the strategic direction for and co-ordinating provision of health and social care services locally by containing substantial representation from elected local councillors; and by requiring GP commissioning boards to construct their annual plans in conjunction with the HWBs. Secured. 12. Ensure commissioning of health services has some degree of accountability by requiring about half of the members of the board of commissioning consortia, alongside GPs, to be local councillors appointed as non-executive directors. Alternative secured: Instead, we will strengthen the accountability of commissioning through health and wellbeing boards (which will have a majority of councillors if that is what local councillors want). This has the support of the movers of the conference amendment. 13. Offer additional freedoms only to foundation trusts that successfully engage substantial proportions of their local populations as active members. Alternative secured: Monitor, rather than the foundation trusts themselves, will retain a supervisory role. Nick Clegg Liberal Democrats Health policy Public services policy Liberal-Conservative coalition Conservatives NHS Health Nicholas Watt guardian.co.uk

Posted by on June 12, 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.