Clause 29 - Pilot schemes
Health and Social Care Bill
9:30 am
Mr Philip Hammond (Runnymede and Weybridge, Conservative)
We are very supportive of the idea of local flexibility, free from the constraints of rigid national contracts. Will the Minister assure the Committee that the local pharmaceutical services pilot scheme will not go along the route followed by personal medical services. The latter started by emphasising local flexibility and freedom from the rigidity of national contracts, and has moved in the direction of more rigid—or, as the Government would say, more uniform—national contracts. Can he assure us that it will remain a locally flexible scheme?