BMJ 2014;349:g6617 doi: 10.1136/bmj.g6617 (Published 4 November 2014)

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NEWS Private member’s bill aims to repeal competition rules in NHS Zosia Kmietowicz The BMJ

MPs are to get the chance to end competition rules that drive the marketisation of the NHS in England when a private member’s bill is brought before the House of Commons later this month.

Clive Efford, Labour MP for Eltham in southeast London, will table the NHS Amended Duties and Powers Bill this week, and MPs will vote on it on 21 November. The bill sets out to repeal the “section 75” rules of the Health and Social Care Act that have compelled commissioners to tender most NHS contracts since April 2013.1 It would also stop hospitals from being able to earn up to 49% of their income from treating private patients and restore the secretary of state for health’s responsibility for the NHS, which was removed under the act.

The bill would also exempt the NHS from the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), a trade treaty between the European Union and the United States, currently being negotiated in secret. The main aim of the treaty is to reduce regulatory barriers to trade for businesses on both sides of the Atlantic and encompasses food safety rules, environmental legislation, and banking regulations. It would also permit US private healthcare companies to bid for NHS contracts, which many commentators believe would mean the NHS would be impossible to return to the public sector. Efford said in a statement, “People are becoming increasingly angry about the threat that privatisation poses for the future of their NHS. My bill will remove the regulations that force open our NHS to competition from the private sector and will prevent the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership from imposing further threats from competition.”

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The Labour Party is making the NHS and the bill a key issue in the Rochester and Strood byelection, which takes place on 20 November, the day before the vote in the House of Commons. It is challenging the other candidates to back the bill, along with incumbent MPs. Andy Burnham, Labour’s shadow health secretary, said, “David Cameron, Nick Clegg, and coalition MPs have never been given the permission of the public to put market forces at the heart of the NHS. They just did it. As for UKIP [the UK Independence Party], they would go even further than the Tories—a vote for them is a vote for even more privatisation in the NHS. “Later this month Labour will bring a bill to the Commons to free the NHS from Cameron’s market. Voters in Rochester and Strood have a right to know whether their next MP will come straight to the Commons and vote to halt the privatisation of the NHS.”

The Labour candidate in the byelection, Naushabah Khan, said, “People are right to be worried, because our NHS is being torn apart before our eyes. Healthcare should never be about profits. That is why I would support the bill, and I urge other candidates to pledge to do the same.” 1

Iacobucci G. Vast majority of NHS services must go out to tender, health minister says. BMJ 2013;346:f1322.

Cite this as: BMJ 2014;349:g6617 © BMJ Publishing Group Ltd 2014

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Private member's bill aims to repeal competition rules in NHS.

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