Cross-party amendment urges ministers to listen to concerns of health professionals and patients
First signs that dissent about the government's health reforms are spreading to Conservative ranks have emerged as a group of Tory MPs tabled a motion urging ministers to listen to the concerns of patients groups, professional bodies and independent experts.
The cross-party motion signed by four Tory MPs ? Dr Sarah Wollaston, Charles Walker, Douglas Carswell and Anne Main ? urges ministers to work with these groups to achieve a strengthened NHS.
The motion, in the form of an amendment to a Labour motion due to be debated in the Commons on Wednesday, is a sign that Tory MPs are starting to become concerned that Andrew Lansley, the health secretary, is not taking health professionals with him in his radical reform plans. The BMA voted on Tuesday to call for Lansley to withdraw the bill.
The Liberal Democrats overwhelmingly passed a motion on Saturday calling on the government to refashion the reforms away from competition and marketisation.
A group of Liberal Democrats MPs led by Greg Mulholland has also tabled an amendment for Wednesday's debate calling for the health bill to be amended and agreeing with Labour that reforms represent a damaging and unjustified market-based reorganisation.
Liberal Democrat backbenchers backing this motion include David Ward, MP for Bradford East, Ian Swales (Redcar), John Leech (Manchester Withington) and John Pugh (Southport) who is a member of the standing committee scrutinising the health and social care bill .
Other Liberal Democrats backing the amendment include Tessa Munt (Wells), Andrew George (St Ives), Mike Crockhart, (Edinburgh West), Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) and Stephen Gilbert (St Austell and Newquay). Other Liberal Democrats will be voicing anxiety to whips, emboldened to do so by the conference vote urging them to reject the reforms.
Ministers are being privately urged to make concessions before local elections in May.
Signals coming from the department of health remain defiant with a promise only to make small changes to the language of the bill.
A danger for the Liberal Democrats is that if they fail to secure serious concessions, particularly in the area of accountability of health bodies to local government, they will face a serious bust-up with the party's federal committees.
Some of the party's most serious policy committee officials, Evan Harris and Jeremy Hargreaves, were instrumental in pushing the conference motion calling on the coalition to rethink the bill.
The health minister, Simon Burns, refused in a standing committee on Tuesday to give ground on one of the central objections to the bill ? the introduction of a new economic regulator monitor, modelled on the gas regulator and charged with promoting competition in the NHS. He also refused to accept amendments to make the regulator more accountable to health consumer groups.
John Pugh spoke against the new regulator, saying there was no evidence that such a regulator worked in any health economy, and then abstained on a Labour amendment calling for the concept of monitor to be dropped.
Ministers remain convinced that the reforms are well judged, but misunderstood and subject to systematic Labour misrepresentation by the shadow health minister, Liz Kendall.
David Cameron has backed the reforms, making a long speech explaining their purpose, but he acknowledges that they have not been well received by the public. He faces a choice between cutting his losses or expending more valuable and finite political capital to resell the reforms to increasingly sceptical voters.
Cameron's biggest political difficulty is that the public believe they were reassured by the Tories during the election that there would be no radical reforms to the NHS, and have yet to be convinced that a largely popular institution needs to be reorganised from top to bottom.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/mar/16/conservatives-motion-critical-nhs-bill
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