Risk of patient safety 'bonfire' with Health Bill changes, Lib Dems say

The NHS Modernisation Bill is currently at the study stage and scheduled for a third reading on 7 September. Liberal Democrat health spokesperson Helen Morgan denounced the legislation as “a catastrophic measurement backwards” and labelled it “the greatest backward measurement successful diligent information successful a generation.” She urged Andy Burnham to “urgently enactment an extremity to this, and hole the Health Bill truthful that modernising the NHS doesn’t travel astatine the disbursal of accountability, transparency oregon diligent safety.” In a January address on NHS improvement, then‑Health Secretary Wes Streeting remarked, “there are galore decent radical moving astatine Healthwatch who care, but the occupation of listening to patients can't beryllium farmed retired to an arm's magnitude body.” He added, “It indispensable beryllium halfway concern for the NHS. That is wherefore we're taking it backmost in-house and I won't backmost down connected that either.” The Liberal Democrats contend that the bill abolishes the NHS’s duty to cooperate with the Care Quality Commission on key information sharing and strips away automatic “safe space” safeguards for whistleblowers. Amendments proposed by the party would reverse those changes, and the group is “urging the caller Burnham medication to follow them.” The party pledged to “robustly combat the authorities” in the House of Lords, where Labour lacks a majority. A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson defended the bill, stating it “explicitly preserves harmless abstraction provisions and unit volition proceed to beryllium protected.” The spokesperson continued, “The reforms we are introducing volition springiness patients a stronger, clearer dependable at the bosom of wellness and societal care.” Andy Burnham served as health lead in 2009, the year the Healthcare Commission’s report on the Stafford Hospital scandal was published. He subsequently launched an independent inquiry in 2010. In May, the Local Government Association told the BBC that dissolving Healthwatch would constitute a “significant measurement back” for accountability. The LGA warned, “Without an independent, locally rooted dependable to situation and correspond communities, determination is simply a hazard of duplication and gaps in accountability.” England presently hosts more than 150 local Healthwatch organisations.