Health and Care Bill 2021-22

Roderick P, Pollock AM. Dismantling the National Health Service in England. International Journal of Health Services 2022:00207314221114540. download

Roderick P. Presentation on the Health and Care Bill, 05 March 2022

Socialist Health Association South West. 15 February 2022

Correspondence

Email to Prof Dame Helen Stokes-Lampard, chair of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges

Happy New Year and Congratulations too on your damehood.

Margaret [McCartney] tells me she has sent you the background briefing to the Bill which I sent her last night.

I am writing to you in your new capacity as chair of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges. Opposing this Bill is the most important thing you can now do in your new role as chair of Academy.

The Bill, far from undoing privatisation, continues the dismantling and privatisation of our health services in England - and all the workarounds that Simon Stevens has put in place will be the levers.

I am aware that some colleges are deeply conflicted because of their sympathies to private practice but they all trained in, and owe their careers to the NHS.

It is never too late to oppose this Bill - so far the colleges have been extremely disappointing and indeed lack lustre in their response and failed to think through the implications for patients.

Might you invite Peter and I to give a briefing to the Academy on the legal and policy aspects of the Bill, and soon?

It would be really sad and disastrous for everyone if current college chairs were not aware of how grave this bill is, and let it through on the nod, as they pretty much did over the Lansley Bill in 2012. The record of the colleges is not good when it comes to safeguarding the NHS.

I spoke to Clare Gerada last night and she was unaware of the contents of the Bill and its gravity, and I have sent her the same material.

It is never too late and if we dont oppose it - history will record it. And we have to answer to the next generations who are not in a position to oppose it.

I would be very happy to speak to you.
Thanks in advance
Best wishes
Allyson

Publications and briefing notes

Dropkin G. Tentacles wrapped around the NHS. LabourNet UK 21 Jan 2022.

Camden Council meeting, 24 Jan 2022: Deputation on the Health and Care Bill

Pollock AM, Roderick P. Health and Care Bill: briefing for Lords committee stage – proposed amendments. 10 Jan 2022

Pollock AM, Roderick P. If you believe in a public NHS, the new health and care bill should set off alarm bells. The Guardian 07 Dec 2021.

Helen Buckingham and Mark Dayan (Asking the right questions on the health and care bill The Guardian letters 17 Dec 21) claim that our opinion piece of 7 December misunderstands some of the “basic points” of the Health and Care Bill. Would that they were correct.

The new Integrated Care Boards will not “serve 42 areas of England”, or any area. ICBs will serve – i.e., commission health services for – their members, as clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) do now. Their members will be allocated to them under rules made by NHS England without parliamentary process – unlike for CCGs.

The shift from area- to membership-based responsibility occurred under the 2012 Health and Social Care Act, though at least then parliament stipulated whom CCGs had to serve. One of the inevitable consequences of this shift would have been that a CCG only had to commission emergency services for its members, not for everybody present in the CCG’s area. After ‘the pause’ in the parliamentary progress of that legislation, the government brought forward an amendment to ensure that a CCG arranged emergency services “for every person present in its area”. That amendment became section 3(1C) of the NHS Act 2006. Clause 15 of the Health and Care Bill gets rid of section 3(1C) and so it will not be passed on to ICBs.

We are perplexed why your correspondents, as representatives of the Nuffield Trust, appear not to have grasped these “basic points”.

Pollock AM, Roderick P. Why is the legal duty to arrange provision of medical services missing from clause 15 of the Health and Care Bill? 2021. download

Pollock AM, Roderick P. Health and Care Bill 2021-22. Submission to the Public Bill Committee. 2021. download

Roderick P. Letter to the House of Commons and House of Lords Joint Committee on Human Rights, in relation to the Health and Care Bill 2021-22. 13 Jul 2021. download

Pollock AM, Roderick P. Health and Care Bill 2021-22: key points and questions for the second reading, 14 July 2021. 13 Jul 2021. download

Roderick P, Pollock AM. A new bill to reform the NHS in England: the wrong proposals at the wrong time. BMJ Opinion 11 Feb 2021.