Clause 31 - Designation of priority neighbourhoodsor premises
Health and Social Care Bill
11:00 am
Mr John Denham (Minister of State, Department of Health; Southampton, Itchen, Labour)
The clause provides a power to make regulations that allow health authorities to designate neighbourhoods and premises for the purpose of local pharmaceutical services pilots. The idea is that the development of LPS is not undermined by the operation of existing national arrangements for pharmaceutical services. If a health authority and its local partners wanted to discuss and prepare pilot schemes, they should have the breathing space to do so, without constantly being faced by the pressure that someone else might apply to open a pharmacy in the same place under the national arrangements.
Under existing national arrangements, health authorities are obliged to consider applications from people wishing to provide pharmaceutical services in their areas. If the application satisfies certain tests, health authorities have no choice in practice but to grant it, so there clearly could be conflict and disruption between the desire to develop a local pharmaceutical services pilot and an application from a scheme under the national arrangements.
With LPS, we want something much more proactive. We want a two-way process in which existing contractors and other prospective pilot scheme participants come forward with ideas that they want to discuss with health authorities, while health authorities will look for opportunities of their own to develop pilots. It would be wasteful if health authorities had to do that and deal with applications to open pharmacies under the national arrangements.
There must be limits to such designations. We have no desire to see deliberate or inadvertent planning blights. The clause provides for us to make regulations, rather than conferring the power directly on health authorities. The regulations will be able to set limits on which places may be designated and the period for which designation may be maintained. The clause also ensures that we can take timely action should the designation system be misused. If necessary, the Secretary of State and the National Assembly for Wales will be able to direct a health authority to cancel a designation.
On reflection, however, we think that one part of the clause is unnecessary. Its purpose is to allow health authorities to defer part II applications. That is stated explicitly, so we do not think that the further reference to health authorities giving priority to LPS schemes in some other unspecified way is necessary. Amendments Nos. 208 and 221 delete that unnecessary power by deleting the relevant paragraphs.
That is probably sufficient introduction for the amendments.