NHS Bill Passes: Next Steps....

We’re sorry to have to tell you, if you didn’t already know, that the government’s controversial Health and Social Care Bill has cleared both Houses of Parliament. MPs have voted to agree the Lords’ amendments to the Bill, turning down a Commons proposal from Shadow Health Secretary Andy Burnham to delay the final vote until the government published the Transitional Risk Register, outlining the dangers they expected to the NHS through these reforms.

Whilst the government will heave a collective sigh of relief having struggled over the last 18 months to get this legislation through, the negative impacts of these measures will be felt by NHS patients and health practitioners for years to come.

Some MPs who voted for the Bill will today be pointing to the limited amendments they managed to get the Health Secretary to agree to, but they’ve done nothing to change the fundamentals of the Bill, and the outcomes will be much the same with or without their changes.

This is a major blow, but for us and the other groups and organisations campaigning against the Bill, the fight for our NHS is far from over.

It’s important that we don’t let up on our opposition to what the government are doing with our Health Service. The changes, whilst highly damaging to the principles of the service, only affect England, and are reversible. We can and will restore and retain our NHS.

We need to be working now to gather information on the impact these changes are having. We need to gather the evidence to show what the cuts and reforms have done to NHS waiting lists, the quality of service non-private patients receive, and the standards for workers. And we want to gather information about the private companies who are looking to profit from our NHS.

There will be a political price for many to pay for forcing this bad Bill through Parliament, against the wishes of the majority of the public and the overwhelming majority of health professionals, and without a mandate in the parties’ manifestos or the coalition agreement.

Eastbourne's Lib Dem MP, Stephen Lloyd, voted FOR the bill, without waiting for the publication of the Risk Register.

You can keep up with the TUC's campaign for the Health Service by clicking here.