My Lords, I declare my position as a vice-president of the LGA and the NALC. I will speak particularly to Amendment 23 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, to which I have attached my name; it is unfortunate that we have not heard from her yet. It is about consultation with local authorities, which is what so much of our debate on this group thus far has already addressed. I particularly associate myself with the comments of the noble Lords, Lord Hunt and Lord Davies. A great rearrangement of the NHS has happened entirely under the radar, and it is deeply disturbing to those of us concerned about the risk of the Americanisation of our NHS and its takeover by private US healthcare for-profit companies.
I am slightly surprised that no one has yet mentioned the report in the Times this morning about the Health Secretary seeking to model NHS hospitals on academy schools, which has been seen as a large privatisation of our education system. Also, we found out only recently and entirely by accident that the Chancellor was giving days of his time to visit US healthcare companies in California. When you look at those facts, the runes seem very disturbing. To defend against the incidents that the noble Lord, Lord Davies, referred to, and the restructuring by stealth, we need local authority involvement. That is what Amendment 23 seeks to ensure, at least in part.
I also want to comment briefly on another amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, Amendment 44, which is about protecting the collective arrangements for pay and conditions for staff. We have to look at it in the context of the survey this week that showed one in four doctors saying that they were exhausted to the point of being impaired in their work. We have an exhausted, utterly worn-down
workforce, and we have nurses who are not paid enough and end up going into food banks to feed their families.
It is obviously a matter of justice that we at least protect, and in fact improve, the pay and conditions of healthcare workers. But more than that, it is very much an issue of health as well, because workers who are overworked and underpaid are simply unable to deliver the quality of care that we would hope to provide.
I very much hope that this group of amendments will get some attention, because this has all happened under the radar. There has been no public discussion of this and that desperately needs to happen, so once again it seems to fall to your Lordships’ House to try to get this on the agenda.