I find it very worrying that the Government are choosing to reorganise the NHS during the third wave of the pandemic—a time of exhausted staff and huge pressure. The health service has been stretched to its absolute limits and the road back will be long and difficult. The NHS is scrambling to catch up, yet amid the chaos, the Government want to completely restructure it. Although I support the integration of healthcare and social care, that is not what the proposed integrated care boards and partnerships will achieve.
I am especially concerned that the Bill removes the duty to provide secondary care services, permits the deregulation of all health professions and encourages hospitals to discharge patients prematurely without the assessment of their care needs. In some areas, commissioning responsibilities are up for grabs or even promised to local authorities, which believe they can just use them without the benefit of NHS commissioning experience. There is no doubt that patients and staff will suffer amid the organisational chaos.
I am delighted that this appears to be the end of the disastrous competition of the Lansley Bill, but I doubt we can trust that the end of tendering will mean the end of privatisation. It could actually give rise to privatisation that is unregulated by the tendering process. The private contracts awarded in my constituency have been nothing short of a disaster. To be told that the culprit can have a voice in future decision making is simply unacceptable. How can we allow self-interested, profit-motivated company stakeholders to influence decisions that are supposed to be made with one person in mind—the patient? Remember, it is all about the patient.
I am very concerned about boundaries and the democratic deficit that they will throw up in my constituency. Primary care will be in the Lancashire integrated care system, while acute services will be in the Cheshire-Mersey ICS. My constituents will not be at the table at any point when their hospital services are discussed, as they are not in the Cheshire-Mersey footprint, although their hospitals are—so much for the primacy of place that everybody talks about.
This is a disaster waiting to happen. Many MPs voted for the Lansley Bill with deep and great misgivings. They were right then—the Bill is testimony to that. I implore them not to make the same mistake now.
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