Health and Social Care Bill

The status quo in British health care is certainly no serious option. Improving the NHS is, of course, a continuing challenge, not least because of the ageing of our population, rising medical costs in many sectors and rising public expectations, which are sometimes fuelled by information on the internet. If one adds to that the new public health agenda and the need to bring health and social care into better alignment, one can see the scale of the challenge. However, that is not to say that a top-down reorganisation is the answer. I want to ask Ministers some specific questions about how the Bill will impact on some of the values and underlying principles of the NHS. The first is the principle that the health service should be based on need, not income or wealth, which is perhaps the essence of the NHS. How do the proposals relating to private patients in hospitals relate to that ethical principle? The proposal is to remove any limit on the use of NHS beds and staff to treat privately paying patients. Unless the Government somehow envisage surplus hospital resources, spare staff and empty beds—a far-fetched proposition—will not more private patients create longer waiting times for NHS patients and/or poorer care? What is the Minister's judgment on that? My second question concerns the profit motive, which jars, at least for many of us, with the principle of patient care. Will Ministers confirm that private companies might in practice commission on behalf of GPs, possibly including US companies, while other companies will be awarded contracts? Have I understood that correctly? What is to stop companies competing on price for relatively straightforward procedures, perhaps initially cherry-picking as a loss-leader while leaving NHS hospitals with, frankly, the more difficult medical territories? What proportion of the NHS budget might effectively be in private hands? Of the £80 billion annual expenditure that we hear about, what sums might end up as profits for private shareholders? Ministers must have some idea of the answers to those questions, so I would be pleased to hear their answers or guesstimates.