Abrahams Welcomes Change To NHS Bill
Debbie Abrahams MP
Saddleworth MP Debbie Abrahams has welcomed changes to the government’s planned health reforms, which are currently working their way through Westminster.
Conservative Health Secretary Andrew Lansley has agreed to Labour demands to remove a proposal which would have allowed hospitals and other NHS health providers to undercut each other on price.
At the moment, hospitals are paid a set price for most of the services they provide. Mr Lansley’s idea would have allowed other providers such as private firms the opportunity to aggressively compete by offering those services for less.
Ms Abrahams, who worked in health before entering politics and who made the Bill the focus of her maiden speech in the Commons back in January, said the u-turn was “good news for Oldham.”
In a statement, she commented: “We could well have found ourselves in the situation where the Royal Oldham was competing with other hospitals across the region and patients simply receiving treatment from the cheapest provider.”
She added: “Our struggle to preserve the principles of the NHS is far from over but, as a member of the Health and Social Care Committee, I will continue to push the government to ensure that our precious NHS is protected and not turned into a hotchpotch of competing businesses.”
Health Secretary Andrew Lansley speaking to Saddleworth News in Greenfield earlier this year. (picture: Stuart Coleman Photography)
The main thrust of the government’s reforms, which include getting rid of health bureaucrats in Primary Care Trusts and instead giving much more power to GPs, remain in place. In an interview with Saddleworth News earlier this year, Mr Lansley defended those plans.
He said: “We will simplify and reduce the cost of administration in the NHS dramatically as a consequence. Over the course of four years, it will mean £1.9 billion less administration costs in the NHS in real terms.”
The Health Secretary went on: “Trying to separate and imagine there’s something that goes on that’s called management in the health service, that is completely separate from treating patients, is a fallacy. Looking after patients, the referral decisions made by GPs, the prescribing decisions made by GPs, are instrumental to the decisions you make about the management of the service.”
He continued by insisting the Bill would be good for patients: “Patients have an expectation that their GP surgery, with whom they’re registered, should be directly participants in determining the shape of health services for them.”
You can read more details of the change to the Bill from the Guardian here and the Financial Times here.
Mr Lansley’s Saddleworth News interview can be read and listened to here.
Author: Jude Gidney - Editor
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