Conservative Draft Bill On The Nhs And The Universal Duty Of Care

EDM number 1929 in 2007-08, proposed by Lynne Jones on 01/07/2008.
Categorised under the topic of Health services.

That this House notes that Parliament currently places a duty on the Government to provide a universal, comprehensive health service; also notes that in part 1, section 1, point 2, of the Conservative draft bill on the NHS, entitled the National Health Service (Autonomy and Accountability) Bill, the NHS principles are listed, but below that at point 5, the draft Bill states `Where it appears to the Secretary of State or an NHS body that any of their duties conflict with one or more of the NHS principles, priority must be given to their duties under this or any other enactment'; is alarmed that, if enacted, this provision would remove the unqualified duty to uphold the principles of the NHS as set out in the original NHS legislation, allowing the duty to provide a universal service to be overridden at any time in the future without further NHS Act repeals or amendments; further notes that, despite this, the Conservative White Paper that accompanied their draft Bill purported to uphold the core NHS principles; and further notes that the removal of the primacy of the NHS principles in the Conservative Bill is included in a section that restates but does not protect the founding principles; and calls upon all those celebrating the 60th birthday of the NHS to do everything in their power to protect the unqualified universal duty of care of which the UK is proud.

This motion has been signed by a total of 37 MPs.