Clause 34
Health Bill [Lords]
1:00 pm
Stephen O'Brien (Shadow Minister, Health; Eddisbury, Conservative)
It is good to be back under your chairmanship, Mr. Key. With amendment 152 and clause 34, we are dealing with the private patient income cap. Under the amendment, the Secretary of State must, rather than may, by regulations make provision. I shall happily withdraw it if the Minister withdraws his intent—signalled by the unselectable amendment 199—to remove the clause altogether, or if he promises to introduce an equivalent replacement on Report.
Let me be clear from the outset: the issue is not fundamentally about private health care or private patients; it is about better functioning of foundation trusts, better care for NHS patients and better value for UK taxpayers. The private patient income cap is iniquitous, limiting foundation trusts arbitrarily to the proportion of private to public income that they received in the base year—2002-03, the year before the first foundation trusts were authorised. For some, that means 30 per cent.; for others, it is 5 per cent. For all mental health trusts, it is 0 per cent. The cap also prevents specialist hospitals such as Great Ormond Street—I would be very surprised if any hon. Member had the guts to say that they thought that hospital should not be allowed to expand and to continue its services—from becoming a foundation trust.
The issue is very relevant to the Committee. Many members of the Committee have foundation trusts in their constituency. In fairness, the hon. Member for Stourbridge made a declaration near the beginning of our proceedings because she has in her area the Dudley Group of Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, and I think she mentioned that her husband is a governor of that trust, so she has an interest in the issue, as does the hon. Member for Bristol, North-West in respect of the University Hospitals Bristol NHS Foundation Trust, and the Government Whip in respect of the South West Yorkshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, which she visited last September. I shall remind her when she comes back into the room. The hon. Member for Romsey has in her area the Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust, to which her constituents are often sent and which just happens to be in your constituency, Mr. Key.