The clock is ticking for the Health & Social Care Bill

Following the announcement in April of a break in the progress of the Bill to ‘pause, listen and reflect’ an independent review group ‘NHS Future Forum’ was set up, taking representations from a broad spectrum of interested parties. The Forum reported their findings and recommendations last June, which covered some of the issues raised in our previous Bulletin.

The existing rules on cooperation and competition in the NHS will be retained and additional safeguards will be introduced to protect against cherry picking and price competition.

It is clear that the government has taken on board a number of the concerns that have been raised and is seeking to address these within the amendments to the Bill.

A further issue is that the current uncertainty is not helping those involved in the NHS. In this regard the government has indicated a time frame confirming that Primary Care Trusts will cease to exist in April 2013, although clinical commissioning groups will not be authorised to take on any part of the commissioning budget in their local area until they are ready and willing so to do. The NHS commissioning board will be established by October 2012 to begin authorising commissioning groups but will only take on responsibility from April 2013 and will act as the commissioning authority where authorised commissioning groups have not already been established. It is further anticipated that the remaining NHS trusts will be authorised as foundation trusts by April 2014, but this may be extended to 2016.

These amendments to the Bill are at the reporting stage before their third reading and changes may still be afoot but the Government has sought to dispel the implication of “privatisation” and tried to emphasise integrated patient healthcare.

From our perspective it is disappointing to note that the initial Bill and the Forum results don’t feature premises or property and rent and it is still unclear as to what Body the current NHS landed interests will transfer to. A senior party within the Department of Health has told us that such detail will now start to flow and that hopefully we should hear something in the coming months.

For further information contact Andrew Hues MRICS 0207 518 3440 email
Andrew.hues@argroup.co.uk

Follow us on Twitter for future regular updates @arghealth.

Following the report the government has undertaken a review and set out a number of amendments addressing concerns raised.

A principal concern was the fact that the NHS should be freed from day to day political interference but that the Secretary of State must remain ultimately accountable for the NHS and the Bill will make the accountability of the Secretary of State explicit. The Bill will further require the NHS commissioning board and clinical commissioning groups to take active steps to promote the NHS constitution which enshrines core principles and values of the NHS.

The Forum stated that the NHS belongs to the people and that there must be transparency about how money is spent and how and why decisions are made. Consequently the government will seek to strengthen the accountability of new organisations, including clinical commissioning groups, and ensure more joined up local services by strengthening requirements for close working between health and well-being boards and clinical commissioning groups.

Greater emphasis will be placed on patient care and public involvement and reflect better the principle of ‘no decision about me without me’

The Forum emphasised that competition should be used as a tool for supporting choice and improving quality and must not be pursued as an end in itself. In this regard, Monitors’ core duties will be focused on protecting and promoting patients’ interests and not on promoting competition.