Clause 6 - Local Health boards
NHS Reform and Health Care Professions Bill
2:30 pm
Mr Don Touhig (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Welsh Office; Islwyn, Labour/Co-operative)
Clause 6 will insert three new sections into the National Health Service Act 1977. New section 16BA will enable the National Assembly for Wales, by order, to establish statutory bodies to be known as local health boards and for those boards to exercise functions directed by the Assembly. Each board will be established in an area of Wales specified in the establishment order.
New section 16BB will empower the Assembly to direct local health boards to carry out specified functions that are currently carried out by health authorities. New section 16BC will enable the Assembly to direct local health board functions to be exercised on its behalf by, or jointly with, a number of other health bodies.
The clause will enable the Assembly to take a major step towards improving the national health service in Wales. It will help to develop the local health model
and pave the way for achieving the reforms outlined in the NHS plan for Wales. The strengthening of local health groups, allied with a new sense of leadership and direction by the National Assembly, will deliver a key part of the NHS plan for Wales and follows from the Assembly's decision to abolish health authorities on 31 March 2003.
The establishment of local health boards is an essential part of the structural reform—