Health Bill [HL]

My Lords, I shall be brief, because I think that this is an excellent amendment which is well worthy of support. I could not resist intervening when I heard the noble Lord, Lord Warner, say that there is a long history of the NHS taking private patients and deriving from them income that has supported the National Health Service. When I became a consultant in neurology in 1958, that was perfectly true. For a time, I did part-time private practice and was able to admit private patients to the ward in my hospital. The income derived from them was substantial. Subsequently, however, I became a whole-time academic and could no longer have private patients in my ward. I think that the memory of the noble Lord, Lord Warner, is rather short. He may not remember that when Mrs Castle, as she was before she became Baroness Castle, was Secretary of State for Health, under pressure from the unions, a major campaign was undertaken to remove, as far as possible, all private beds from NHS hospitals. It reached a stage when there were three major hospitals in Newcastle-upon-Tyne and only one private bed was available in each hospital. I, as an academic, used to receive patients referred to me from countries across the globe—even from the United States and Australia—but I had to refuse to take them because there was not a private bed to which they could be admitted. That policy of the then Labour Government, under pressure from the trade unions, gave the biggest impetus to the development of private hospitals outside the NHS of any policy adopted by any Government. I strongly favour the public-private mix. I strongly favour the proposal that private patient income should be used to the benefit of the National Health Service. I believe that the amendment tabled by my noble friend Lady Meacher goes a long way in that direction. Personally, I would have loved to see the cap greatly increased, but I know full well that Unison would not accept it at the moment. However, I hope that the consultation on which the Minister is now engaged, and in which the Government seek to take advice, will lead to a substantial modification of the cap in the long-term. In the mean time, as my noble friend Lady Meacher has made clear, the income derived from private patients is at the moment of benefit to foundation trusts. For that reason, her amendment, modest although it is, is a crucial development. Whatever the consultation shows, no legislation further to amend the cap is likely to come about for several years to come. I strongly support the amendment.