'Patients need a national voice'

The Bill will cover how patients are represented

The Government's Health and Social Care Bill will not look after patient rights, says the Consumers' Association.

It wants to see a single, national voice for their interests included in the proposals.

The Bill will have its second reading in the House of Commons on Wednesday.

It spells out how changes detailed in last summer's NHS Plan, including the abolition of community health councils, registration of doctors and private finance for doctors' surgeries, will be implemented.

Liberal Democrat health spokesman Paul Burstow has also attacked the Bill, which outlines the Government's plans for free nursing care for the elderly, which he says are being introduced "on the cheap".

National voice

The Consumers' Association (CA) wants a national body which can co-ordinate the work, and the findings, of local patients' forums, bodies linked to trusts, which will have a say over how NHS organisations will work.

They are part of a network of patient bodies which will replace community health councils.

Clara Mackay, principal policy adviser, said the CA supported the fact the Bill would establish the forums as statutory bodies.

Patients are set to lose their statutory right to have a national voice... if the Bill goes ahead in this form

Clara Mackay
Consumers' Association

But she added: "Patients are set to lose their statutory right to have a national voice in how the NHS is run if the Bill goes ahead in this form."

The CA also wants other new bodies - Patient Advocacy and Liaison Service (Pals) and the Independent Local Advisory Forums, which are not outlined in the Bill, to be given statutory protection.

The CA says their omission from the Bill means a future government could abolish the bodies.

'Share information'

It also wants a national system to co-ordinate the information individual health authorities will have to compile of the doctors working in their area - including any who are disqualified.

The CA has said there should be a national list to prevent doctors, particularly locums, moving to another area if they have been removed from a health authority's list.

A CA spokeswoman said: "It's great that health authorities have to maintain a list of GPs. It might go some way to making sure that locums are properly qualified to step in and that they are part of the register in the local area.

"But say a health authority disqualifies a locum from its list. At the moment, there's no way to make sure that the health authority will pass on that information to other authorities."

And the CA called for "real transparency" on how private companies will be able to invest in building doctors' surgeries.

It said there were concerns over what influence a private company would have over how healthcare was provided to patients.

Clara Mackay said: "Public-private partnerships to improve primary health buildings, pilot pharmaceutical schemes so people have easier access to prescription drugs, and new care trusts must all be clearly accountable to a trust or to a national body."

'Fag packet' calculation

Liberal Democrat Health spokesman Paul Burstow MP attacked the government's plans to provide free nursing care for the elderly in nursing and residential homes,

He accused the Government of trying to introduce the system "on the cheap", which could force more care homes out of business.

He said the Government had admitted in a written answer that the estimate of a cost of £420m over four years was a "'back of a fag packet" calculation.

Mr Burstow said: "The Government's plans fail the test of fairness.

"As a result people with dementia will be forced to pay for personal care, such as help with washing and bathing which hospital patients get for free."

He warned the Bill would mean the debt collector would "still come calling on the most frail and most elderly".