Reading’s Labour Councillors are calling on the Government to publish a strategic risk report on the Health & Social Care Bill which Health Secretary Andrew Lansley is still delaying. In defiance of two rulings from the Information Commissioner, he is keeping it under wraps , no doubt because the House of Lords resumes debating the Bill early next month.
The risk report is a standard Department of Health document which weighs up the risks to patient care, public health, and finance within the NHS posed by the Bill.
Cabinet Member for Health, Cllr Bet Tickner said: “The Information Commissioner has ordered Mr Lansley to release the report but he is refusing, and has lodged an appeal to delay publication while the Tories push the legislation through.
“But Parliament and the public need to know what are the risks that face us all if this bill becomes law, and it is a denial of democracy to keep that analysis secret. The bill has been hugely controversial, and this secrecy leads one to ask what is it that the Government is trying to hide.”
“Last week the Royal College of Nursing and Royal College of Midwives joined the British Medical Association and the Royal College of General Practitioners in calling for the bill to be scrapped entirely. After twelve months of talking to Government, the RCN says ‘we must move to a position of outright opposition to the bill…because our concerns have not been listened to and the genuine anxieties we have on behalf of patients in England have been, to a large extent, ignored.’
“Andrew Lansley’s truly insulting response was to say that all these health professionals were interested in was pay and pensions. What he won’t admit is that everybody who cares about the NHS thinks his plans are wrong-headed, dangerous and, I am sure this report confirms, risky.”
Deputy Health Lead Cllr Matt Rodda said “The information in this risk report could be the final nail in the coffin for the Government’s controversial plan to shake up the NHS. They are afraid that if members of the House of Lords see it, the bill might fall. If it was good news for them, they would publish it, you can bet on that. I think it’s outrageous that they want legislation to go through without a proper consideration of the facts.”
Bet Tickner and Matt Rodda are emailing Reading East MP Rob Wilson about getting the report published, and Labour Council Leader Jo Lovelock is emailing her MP, Alok Sharma. Cllr. Lovelock believes the Government have been unprepared for the level of public anger about the bill: “We had a lot of interest in our campaigns on the NHS last year, and there are very real concerns that this could be the end of the NHS. Reading has already been badly let down by a Government that tells us it isn’t cutting the Health budget, while taking £60 million away from our Royal Berkshire Hospital! This is a crisis for the NHS and Labour will defend it to the last.”
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