Reject

The
Efford
Bill
Not everything is what it seems
Before it was
published we
were told that the bill would restore the secretary of States
duty to provide comprehensive healthcare, remove the NHS
from competition law and remove it from the clutches of the
Transatlantic Trade and Invenstment Treaty (TTIP).
The bill, published only at the last minute, does none of
these things. The structures that it creates only make sense
if there is to be continuing private encroachment on the
NHS.
Effords bill retains the 2012 acts duty to exercise functions
to secure provision rather than the 1946 acts duty to
provide.
It defines the health service as being of general economic
interest (GEI). GEI means that it will come under EU
competition law and will have to be open to private
contractors.
The provisions for exemption from TTIP are ambiguous and
experts do not think they will work.

Activists have been fighting for the universal, publicly provided NHS
that existed before the Health and Social Care Act was passed. How
can we support a bill that does not offer this, but enshrines
marketisation? As a recent resolution passed by Keep Our NHS Public
states: We cannot support this bill in its current form.

The Efford Bill doesnt do what it says on

the tin.
At the second reading, MPs need to clarify the Bills strange manoeuvrings
around EU competition law, NHS contracts and non-NHS contracts:
1)Why does it simultaneously remove the NHS from EU competition law, by repealing S 75 of the 2012 Health & Social Care Act. (Part 3, Section 10); and
restore it to EU competition law, by categorising the NHS as a Service of
General Economic Interest? (Part 1, Section 1, Subsection 2 (b))
2) Why does the Bill wants to change the definition of an NHS contract so that
it allows private providers (a person who is not a health service body) to enter into NHS contracts? (Part 1 Section 6, where the Efford Bill alters Section
9 of the National Health Service Act 2006.)
3) Why does the Bill wants to allow commissioners and providers to be able to
enter contracts for the provision of goods or services for the purpose of the
health service, without them being NHS contracts? (Part 1, Section 6, Subsections 19 & 20)
4)Is this in order to allow United Health (or another health maintenance organisation) to take all the contracts for the privatised Commissioning Support
Units in 2016, in joint venture contracts with the CSUs, without falling foul of
the EU competition law ban on monopoly provision? By virtue of the fact that
these would be non-NHS contracts as permitted in Part 1, Section 6, Subsections 19 & 20.
As well as changing those baffling sections so that the Efford Bill doesnt open
the NHS gate even wider to privatisatoin tanks on the lawn, the Efford Bill
would need many other amendments so that it
brings back the Sec of States duty to provide a comprehensive, universal,
equitable health service
categorises the NHS as a non-commercial, non-marketised public service,
which, together with the repeal of S75 of the Health and Social Care Act
2012, would free it from EU competition law and privatisation and protect it
from TTIP
removes the Sec of States power to overrule decisions by NHS commissioners or providers on the grounds that theyre anti-competitive
replaces the 49% cap on the amount of private income that Trusts & Foundation Trusts can earn, that the Efford Bill would remove
As well as those amendments called for by Professor Allysson Pollock in her
response to the Efford Bill http://www.nhsbill2015.org/wpcontent/uploads/2014/11/Response-to-the-Efford-Bill-12-Nov-14.pdf