NHS’s existence in danger, warns Labour peer in debate on service overhaul
The future of the NHS is in danger along with the principle of universal healthcare free at the point of delivery, it has been warned.
Labour peer Viscount Hanworth also claimed the original aims of the health service had been subverted.
His criticism came as he opened a debate into the impact of a controversial overhaul of the NHS in England carried out under the Conservatives.
The Health and Social Care Act 2012, which encountered strong opposition to its introduction, gave GPs and other clinicians more responsibility for spending the health budget in England, while encouraging greater competition with the private sector.
It was on this latter point that Lord Hanworth targeted his criticism.
He told peers: “The very existence of the NHS is in danger as is the principle of universal healthcare provision free at the point of delivery.
“The NHS is being turned into a market-based system.”
He said the changes had been taking place over the last 25 years but had accelerated under the Conservatives.
He referred to the “slow and inexorable process by which the original intentions of the NHS have been subverted”.
But Conservative former health secretary Lord Lansley, who introduced the legislation, rejected the criticism and said there were many errors in the Labour peer’s claims.
Defending the reforms, he said: “We did not at any point countenance a shift away from the NHS as a comprehensive, universal service free at the point of service.”
“In the midst of financial imperatives, we gave the NHS the priority it deserved,” he added.
Labour’s Lord Lipsey said the health service was not free at the point of use despite claims to that effect. Lots or health care was paid for like dentistry and prescription charges.
The provision of treatments varied hugely from place to place, he told peers.
For the Liberal Democrats, Baroness Walmsley said junior doctors were worried about the survival of the NHS and had made their own judgment of the 2012 changes.
She called for a cross-party debate on how much should be spent on health and social care and how to raise the money.
Labour spokesman Lord Hunt of Kings Heath said the “overt privatisation” of the 2012 reforms had produced great confusion and fragmentation.
Lord Hunt said he had no problem with the involvement of the private sector in the NHS, which had much to gain from partnership working.
But he said the recent changes had forced the NHS to “tender out services willy nilly” at great expense and with “very poor outcomes”.
Health minister Lord Prior of Brampton said he did not recognise the picture painted by Opposition peers about the health service.
He insisted the Government believed “wholeheartedly in a tax-funded, comprehensive national health service”.
The NHS was “performing fantastically well” at a difficult time of growing demand with an ageing population and tight finances.
Lord Prior acknowledged that the “opening up of the market” through choice and competition had not been the success ministers would have hoped for.
Health care was not a “perfect market” and the Government had moved on to a new approach based on transparency and eliminating unwarranted variations in care.
A Department of Health spokesman commented later: “The public can be absolutely assured that under this Government, the NHS will remain free at the point of use. That’s why we’re investing £10 billion in its own plan for the future – including almost £4 billion this year – to sustain and improve services for patients.”
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