'Damning' MPs report could be 'the final nail in the NHS reform coffin', says Unite

24 January 2012

The 'damning indictment' of the NHS reform process by the House of Commons health select committee today (Tuesday 24 January) should be 'the final nail in the coffin' of this massively flawed legislation.

Unite, the largest union in the country with 100,000 members in the health service, said today that the MPs' verdict from the cross-party select committee showed that the coalition was split, and that the Health and Social Care bill should be scrapped.

The MPs expressed concern that the £20 billion of savings demanded by health secretary Andrew Lansley were being made through 'salami slicing' and that the restructuring of the NHS was creating 'disruption and distraction'.

Unite's head of health, Rachael Maskell, said today: ”This damning report from the select committee should be the final nail in the coffin for this bill that has united health professionals and health experts in opposition from across the board.

”This bill could be the Achilles heel of the coalition – you have Liberal Democrat doyenne, Shirley Williams taking on her party leader, Nick Clegg, and Stephen Dorrell, the health select committee chair and former Tory health secretary, criticising David Cameron.

”MPs are hearing from their constituents about increasing waiting lists and cuts to services. The threats to the standards of patient care are now being realised. Already it is estimated that that tens of thousands of NHS staff have or will lose their jobs because of the savings demanded by ministers.

”The fact that the committee chairman is Stephen Dorrell speaks volumes about the depth of concern about the misguided direction of travel of Andrew Lansley.

”Unite has been consistently against this bill – it is an 'open sesame' for the private companies to take over great swathes of the NHS; where profit will trump patient care.

”The bill is in deep trouble – already it is the longest period that legislation has taken to get to the statute book in modern times. Why? Because MPs and peers have rumbled the pernicious implications of the bill. There is no appetite for this bill in parliament and in the country as a whole.”

Last week, the all party parliamentary group on primary care and public health said that it was 'concerned' that the cost of the NHS 'reforms' was between £2-3 billion, at a time when the government wanted the health service to save £20 billion by 2015.

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