Opposition Day— [4th Allotted Day]: National Health Service
I beg to move
That this House regrets the growing gap between Ministers’ statements and what is happening in the NHS; notes mounting evidence of rationing of treatments and services by cost, despite Ministers’ claims to have prevented it; further regrets the increasing number of cost-driven reconfigurations of hospital services, despite the Coalition Agreement’s promise of a moratorium on changes to hospital services; further notes growing private sector involvement in both the commissioning and provision of NHS services, contradicting Ministers’ claims that the NHS reorganisation would not increase levels of privatisation; recognises that, according to the Government’s Public Expenditure Statistical Analyses figures, actual Government spending on the NHS in 2011-12 fell by £26 million, the second successive real-terms reduction in NHS spending, following a reduction of £766 million in the Government’s first year in office, in breach of the commitment in the Coalition Agreement; believes the Government’s decision to reorganise the NHS has distracted its focus from the financial challenge, with seven out of 10 acute hospital trusts in England missing savings targets in the first half of 2011-12; calls on the Government to take action to prevent rationing by cost in the NHS, based on the evidence presented; and further calls on the Government to honour pledges on NHS spending in the Coalition Agreement, and the commitment that future savings will be reinvested into the NHS front line, and to return at least half of the underspend to the Department of Health budget.