April 4.4.2011.
My Comments are in italics and underlined.
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810. This clause allows the Secretary of State to direct NICE as to the discharge of its functions if NICE is failing to carry out any of these or is failing properly to discharge them. If NICE fails to comply with such a direction, the Secretary of State may discharge those functions or make arrangements for another body (Exactly who?) to discharge them on Secretary of State’s behalf.
830. The procedure would cover an operational matter without unnecessary waste of Parliamentary time on a level of operational detail not appropriate for Parliamentary debate. (Parliamentary time? Surely our own Government has plenty of Parliamentary time for exactly WHO are they destroying our NHS for? If our Government was actually Governing us, there would be no need of altering the NHS at all only improving it. It has worked very well for how many years? Ah yes, since July 1948)
Subsection (6): Power to direct that the Information Centre must comply with a request from a person outside the United Kingdom. (Now that leaves the whole wide world to choose from-the people must know exactly where that person is to be and where from.)
831. Clause 239(1) would enable persons or bodies other than the Secretary of State or the NHS Commissioning Board to request the Information Centre to put in place a system for collecting, analysing, publishing or disseminating health and adult social care information that they require. Subsection (6) would enable the Secretary of State or the NHS Commissioning Board to direct that the Information Centre must comply with a request from a person outside the United Kingdom. (Exactly who will that be and where from?)The power is for the Secretary of State or the NHS Commissioning Board to be able to ensure that the UK complies with its international obligations, for example its international agreements or arrangements with WHO in the compilation of health statistics for comparison. (Providing of course that all is in keeping with the people’s and this Countries Common Law Constitution)
Reason for delegating the power
832. It would not be possible to specify in primary legislation the precise requirements for an information collection for bodies from outside the United Kingdom. (This is what primary legislation is for-to be precise- is it to be some-one from the USA? Africa? China? The EU? This must be stated exactly where from if an outside body is to interfere with our own National Health Service. Nothing less will do)
Reason for the selected procedure
833. A direction-giving power would provide the flexibility to define new information collections as they are needed, as the requirements for bodies from outside the United Kingdom are likely to be infrequent and subject to change. (One visit a year might well be too often if there is any change made to anything to do with our NHS-this simply is not good enough)
PART 11: MISCELLANEOUS
853. Under this Part of the Bill, the Secretary of State would have the power to make schemes to transfer staff or property, rights and liabilities from one body to another as a result of bodies being abolished or created by this Bill. Schemes might make transfers of staff or property to a range of bodies, including for example local authorities, commissioning consortia, the NHS Commissioning Board, any public authority providing health services or a qualifying company11 . (I’m sorry, but this just will not “do” at all. Far too ambiguous. “the Secretary of State would have the power to make schemes (what schemes?-some-thing that hasn’t been thought of yet?) to transfer staff or property? Which Staff? And supposed they do not want to go? Never have I come across such as this before and I thought some written points in the Labour Government was BAD!)
11 A qualifying company is a company wholly or partly owned by the Secretary of State and formed under section 223 of the National Health Service Act 2006, for the purpose of providing facilities or services to the NHS. Such a company could be used, for example, as an intermediate solution to hold Primary Care Trust property before it is transferred to either local authorities, providers or consortia. Section 223 is an existing provision and has been used by Secretary of State in the past to set up a number of companies to offer services to the NHS, such as NHS Professionals Limited, Bio Products Laboratory Limited and Community Health Partnerships Limited (the LIFT delivery company). (Read this through carefully)
Clause 274: Transfer schemes
Power conferred on: Secretary of State
Power exercised by: Direction
Parliamentary procedure: None (REALLY?)
855. This clause allows the Secretary of State to make staff or property transfer schemes for the transfer of staff or property from one body (Which “body” are they talking about pray?) to another (WHO TO?). The transfer schemes may also make supplementary, incidental, transitional and consequential provision; for example, requiring that the property transferred continues to be used for health purposes. (Oh! So that’s all right then? It can all go to Timbuktu?)
Reason for delegating the power
858. The clause also allows the Secretary of State to delegate the power to prepare property or staff transfer schemes in connection with the abolition of Primary Care Trusts and Strategic Health Authorities either to the NHS Commissioning Board or to a “qualifying company”. The Secretary of State may consider that these bodies are, in practice, better placed to prepare the
transfer schemes and decide where PCT and SHA staff and property should be transferred after abolition; the ability for the Secretary of State to delegate this power would allow these bodies to establish schemes to undertake these transfers. (“qualifying company”.? Now where and who might that be?)
PART 12: FINAL PROVISIONS
Clause 276: Power to make consequential provision
Power conferred on: Secretary of State
Power exercised by: Order
Parliamentary procedure: Affirmative where the order changes primary legislation, otherwise negative
861. This clause says that the Secretary of State may by order make provision in consequence of the Bill. An order may change primary or secondary legislation and may make transitional and saving provision. The clause includes a power, where relevant, to amend Acts of the Scottish Parliament, Acts or Measures of the National Assembly for Wales, and Northern Ireland legislation. (Such a great deal of power given to the Secretary of State-far too much) End of my comments on this bit
I quoted a little from David Byrne EU Commissioner for Health and Consumer Protection in a previous article on the NHS, so I will not leave him out this time either, so here your are:
Putting health at the centre of EU policy making
“Let me give you a few pointers of what such a strategy might include. The only way to achieve good health for all is to put health where it belongs – at the centre of EU policy-making. Let me explain what I mean.
• I mean positioning good health as a key driver of economic growth and fostering
long term investment in health.
• I mean bridging the health gap and tackling inequalities to ensure that good
health is possible for each and every citizen in every city, region and country
across the EU.
• I mean working harder to ensure that all EU policies are good for health. And
that good health becomes an EU strategic goal built into all policies from
agriculture to environment, from transport to trade.
• I mean building capacity to protect citizens against health threats, from
pandemics to bioterrorism to HIV/AIDS”.
“To put health at the centre of policy making we need to work to together.
In the end, the economics and politics of health, will shape the health of our
democratic politics. In the future, there will be no real Europe, without a Europe of
Health.
All very well until I read this too. The Times (In 2003), which reported that if (and we may not have that option of “if” one day) we join the Euro, the European Central Bank had warned Britain it might have to give up its National Health Service. Even the Bolton Evening News, May 2003 reported that, “Britain would be forced to scrap the NHS if we joined the euro, so warns the ECB, saying free health care could be slashed to just emergency services”.
Also, “The ECB recommends jettisoning the NHS in favour of private health care, saying Britain’s aging population will send NHS costs soaring, and euro-zone rules would not allow Gordon Brown to borrow necessary funds to foot the bill”. Does Britain have an aging population more so than any other country?
I must mention the Working Time Directive in passing because this has caused a few problems within the NHS:-The NHS European Office has responded on behalf of the NHS to a European Commission consultation on the Working Time Directive. The European Office worked closely with NHS Employers and trusts across England to ensure NHS views were taken into account in this hugely important review. The response in particular called for changes in the way time spent 'on call' is counted and more flexibility in the timing for compensatory rest. End. So that’s all right then!
Actually the NHS European Office has been open for three years now-kept that quiet didn’t they? When European legislation is implemented into UK law, the window of opportunity in which to debate and, if necessary, amend it has already passed. All
that remains is for the NHS to adjust and adapt. This means it is essential that EU institutions are made aware of the potential impact of the policies they propose at an early stage so that they can take account of their practical implications.
Patients have the right under European law to receive medical treatment anywhere in the EU and, subject to certain conditions, have the costs reimbursed by their home country. Following a succession of European Court rulings (including the “Watts case” which directly concerned the NHS) the European Commission put forward proposals to clarify the rules around these existing rights in July 2008.
If you want to keep your National Health Service, you are going to have to fight for it.
Best wishes and more power to you all, XXXXXXXXXXXXX a p
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