| The battle over reforms to the NHS has entered its next phase. Please help now by writing to your MP to secure a debate on new competition regulations. After a huge public outcry forced Jeremy Hunt to withdraw and rewrite his controversial new NHS competition regulations earlier this month, the government have come back with a new suggestion to put this part of last year’s Health And Social Care Act into practice. The outcry from the public and medical profession put the government on the back foot. Section 5(2), which explicitly made competition for NHS services mandatory in most cases, has now gone. This went way beyond promises made by ministers in the debates over the Act, and it seems they’ve realised now they can’t be seen to go quite that far. But while the new wording talks about integration and co-operation, we still fear that the overall effect of the regulations could be just as damaging in practice. Commissioning groups will still feel under pressure to put services out to competition, due to strictly defined processes and the fear of legal challenge from rejected private providers if they choose the NHS provider that they and local people would prefer.The new regulations still fail to deliver on ministers’ promises that it would be up to commissioners to decide when and how to use competition. Given the huge concern around these regulations, from healthcare professionals as well as patients, we think the revised regulations must be fully scrutinised and debated in Parliament – not rushed through as the government is trying to do. A cross-party group of MPs, who laid a motion to ‘pray against’ the original regulations have introduced another motion (EDM 1188), aiming to get a public debate on the new regulations. It’s vital we get as many MPs as possible to sign this new motion – even if they signed the last one. However the government try to implement this Act, it is still a dangerous piece of legislation that fragments our NHS and brings in a much bigger role for the private sector. We need to expose this by securing the open debate they are trying to avoid. Wavering MPs need to know that whilst the government may be trying to buy enough of their support with these changes, the issue is not solved, and their constituents are still aware and angry about what is happening. Time is tight before these regulations come into law by default. Please help ask your own MP to back the call for a debate and proper scrutiny of the regulations now. We'll help you find them and send an email. Just add your postcode above to get started. UK government data provided by GovEval. |