30.01.13
Lord Owen launches legislation to ‘reinstate NHS’
The National Health Service (Amended Duties and Powers) Bill has been published in Parliament, aimed at preventing fragmentation of the health service and reversing NHS reforms.
Former health minister Lord Owen, a crossbencher in the House of Lords and an opponent to the reforms, presented the Bill yesterday. It seeks to subject all NHS bodies and bodies providing services for the NHS to ministerial direction, repealing the duty of autonomy and reinstating the health secretary’s duty to provide NHS services.
The Health and Social Care Act 2012 has removed the democratic and legal basis of the NHS, Lord Owen warns.
The new Bill is supported by Prof Allyson Pollack, Dr David Price, Peter Roderick and Dr Clare Gerada. It is part of the National Health Action Party’s preparation for the next general election.
Lord Owen said: “The main aim is to have a Bill that will have been tested by public opinion in by-elections and in a general election ready for a new Government, allowing them to urgently put it before both Houses of Parliament and enact it within the shortest possible period, hopefully no more than three months.
“In removing the autonomy provisions of the 2012 Act we are not seeking to go back; what we are seeking to do is to curb the fragmentation that inevitably comes with marketisation.”
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