Local MP to supports Bill to end competition and put patients first in the NHS

Alison Seabeck, MP for Plymouth Moor View, is supporting a Private Members’ Bill from Clive Efford MP today, which, if passed, will restore real democratic accountability for the NHS, scrap the new competition framework and make sure NHS patients are always put first.

The Coalition-Government’s damaging Health and Social Care Act, enforced competition and creeping privatisation within the NHS have left patient care as an afterthought and not the priority that it should be.

The Bill, which Alison Seabeck MP has co-sponsored, would scrap the rules that force market tendering of services that are seeing millions of pounds wasted on competition lawyers instead of patient care.

The Health & Social Care Act exposed the NHS to the full force of competition law. It also established Monitor as an economic regulator to enforce competition in the NHS, along with the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA).

Labour opposes this framework because it is hindering important service improvements simply on the grounds that they do not serve the interests of competition, and is seeing large amounts of money wasted on competition administration and competition lawyers.

Alison Seabeck MP said: “Under this Government, enforced competition and continued privatisation within the NHS have left patient care as an afterthought and not the priority that it should be.

“They have forced hospitals to open themselves up to a privatisation agenda which prioritises spending on competition lawyers rather than on vital care that patients need.

“I know patients in Plymouth will want their hospitals worrying about how to give the best treatment possible, not wasting time and money on letting contracts and paying legal fees. I will therefore be supporting this Bill in Westminster on Friday.”