I am looking forward with great excitement at
today's opportunity_
7 March.
I have hit the jackpot in winning on the
lottery of the House of Commons selection process, a
90 minute debate in Westminster Hall on the NHS and the private
sector.
This will allow me to acknowledge the private
sector for the public-private partnerships that have always been
essential to the NHS, for example the pharmaceutical industry,
community pharmacies and care homes as I am not doctrinally or
politically opposed to use of the private sector when it is
appropriate for the NHS.
Then I will move on to the current controversial
issues, Independent Sector Treatment Centres (ISTCs), Clinical
Assessment, Treatment and Support (CATS) services and the private
finance initiative.
I will ask questions about these services in the
light of Health Select Committee reports and try to gauge whether
the threats to the NHS as Aneurin Bevan founded it, are real or
imagined. There are worrying views that opening up the NHS to
competition could make it subject to European competition law.
R.T.
