This is an excerpt from an interview with Andy Burnham MP, MP for Leigh and Shadow Secretary of State of Health, last year at the Labour Party Conference 2012.
This is statement by Earl Howe last week (5 March 2013):
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Earl Howe): My Lords, I shall now repeat as a Statement the answer to an Urgent Question given in another place by my honourable friend the Minister for care services earlier today on the National Health Service (Procurement, Patient Choice and Competition) Regulations 2013. The Statement is as follows:
“I know that the right honourable gentleman and others have raised concerns about the effect of the regulations, and I would like to address these. First, however, I would like to make it absolutely clear that the regulations must be fully in line with the assurances given to this House during the passage of the Health and Social Care Bill.
The former Secretary of State said to clinical commissioning groups in 2012 that,
“commissioners, and not the secretary of state, and not the regulators, should decide when and how competition should be used to serve patient interests”.
This absolutely must be the case. I made it clear in health Questions last week that we would review the regulations to ensure that this is the case and that they are not open to any misinterpretation.
The right honourable gentleman himself gave guidance to primary care trusts, which made it clear, in 2010-and again I quote:
“Where there is only one capable provider for a particular bundle of services or the objective of the procurement is to secure services to meet an immediate interim clinical need there will be a case for Single Tender Action (ie uncontested procurement). By definition, an immediate”-
“scenario will be exceptional and likely to only … arise on clinical safety grounds or, for example, where existing services have been suspended following intervention by the Care Quality Commission”.
The next bit is very important:
“A decision to procure through a single tender action should always take account of the potential to secure better value by investing in a competitive process, as long as this is justified by the scale and importance of the opportunity (ie it has to be worth it)”.
As we committed in the Government’s response to the Future Forum report, we want to ensure that the regulations simply continue this approach. However, I fully recognise that the wording of the regulations has inadvertently created confusion and generated significant concerns about their effect. I have therefore listened to people’s concerns and my department is acting quickly to improve the drafting so that there can be no doubt that the regulations go no further than the previous set of Principles and Rules, inherited from the previous Labour Government. As we also committed in response to the Future Forum’s report, the Co-operation and Competition Panel has been transferred to Monitor and this will ensure consistency in the application of the rules.
Concerns have been raised that commissioners would need to tender all services. This is not our intention and we will amend the regulations to remove any doubt that this is the case and to clarify that the position remains the same as at present-and as stated in the former Secretary of State’s letters in 2012. Concerns have been raised that Monitor would use the regulations to force commissioners to competitively tender. However, I recognise that the wording of the regulations has created uncertainty and we will therefore amend them to put this beyond doubt.
Concerns have also been raised that competition would be allowed to trump integration and co-operation. The Future Forum recognised that competition and integration are not mutually exclusive. Competition, as the Government made clear during the passage of the Bill, can only be a means to improving services for patients, not an end in itself. What is important is what is in patients’ best interests. Where this is co-operation and integration there would be nothing in the regulations to prevent this. Integration is a key tool that commissioners are under a duty to use to improve services for patients. We will amend the regulations to make this point absolutely clear”.
