I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
It is a great pleasure to introduce the Bill. Its proposals are not really novel, because co-funding and co-payment within our national health service already exist. Indeed, the NHS website, under the heading “When you need to pay towards NHS care”, states:
“Patients often need to pay towards the cost of:
prescriptions
dental care
eye care
wigs and fabric supports”.
It goes on to say:
“The money raised helps fund the NHS.”
The payments in respect of those items are co-payments. Sometimes they are fully funded by the individual, sometimes partially funded, and sometimes there are exemptions, but the money raised from the co-payments then goes into co-funding, and it helps to fund the NHS. Of course, other items could be added to that list.
It is necessary to pay towards NHS care when it is described by some bureaucrat as social care and not healthcare. We know that an enormous amount of bureaucratic time is taken up with trying to argue that people are not in receipt of continuing healthcare, but are actually in receipt of social care. If they were in receipt of continuing healthcare, they would not have to pay for it—it would be free—but because it is deemed to be social care, they have to pay towards it either in full or in part under the system that is in place. The Government have now said that they wish to bring together the health and social care sectors. If they are to do that, then surely they need to be thinking through the issue of means testing and co-funding and co-payment as it relates at the moment to social care.
If we are to have this system, let us make sure that it works. This NHS document makes it clear that a person is not allowed to pay towards the NHS in various other sectors. Why are they are not allowed to pay towards the NHS? Our NHS is, by all accounts, still short of resources. Why do we not do everything in our power to encourage more contributions towards healthcare in this country from private individuals? Is that not a reasonable objective? It seems as though the NHS policy is to prevent people contributing towards their own NHS costs unless they fall into the categories to which I have referred. That is really the essence of this debate. I will not be able to get this Bill on the statute book in the next quarter of an hour, but I hope that I will be able to open up a debate that has been closed for far too long.