Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill

I shall not go over arguments made in Committee about LINKs and their funding, representation on those bodies, the fact that there is no national umbrella organisation that will be able to pull together issues that individual LINKs identify, and the fact that it appears that lessons have not been learned from the abolition of community health councils. I shall comment on our amendment No. 75, but first I confirm that if the official Opposition press amendment No. 80, which would delete the clause that provides for the abolition of patients forums, to a Division, we shall certainly join them in the Lobby to support it. We intend to press amendment No. 75, which stands in my name and those of my hon. Friends the Members for Southport (Dr. Pugh) and for Hazel Grove (Andrew Stunell), to a Division. The Times today contains a topical article that refers to Conservative research on the possibility that half of all A and E units may be marked for closure. That is what our amendment is specifically about. I see the Minister shake his head to indicate that that is not the intention, but I suspect that he would confirm that, according to current Government guidance, the population figure that such units are required to cover is in the order of 450,000. Given the number of A and E departments operating today that do not have a catchment population of that size, we can extrapolate how many the Government might, in an ideal world, want to be taken out of the system. Amendment No. 75 provides that if a significant change is proposed to health services that would affect their accessibility, all the relevant parties—LINKs, patient groups and transport authorities—should be consulted and they should report the impact in a way that the Secretary of State may determine and thereby put the focus on the impact on patients of reduced accessibility to services. When the Minister responds, he will no doubt refer to the debate in Committee and simply say that the matter is covered by proposed new subsection (1D)(a) of section 242 of the National Health Service Act 2006, which is set out in clause 182(2). Our amendment would ensure that there was a much greater focus on the subject, and it would mean that the issue of the accessibility of services was not hidden away in the Bill’s small print. I hope that the Minister will say something positive about the amendment and will accept it; it has been put forward in a constructive manner. If he cannot or will not accept it, it is our intention to press it to a Division.