Get your clause out of our NHS – why you should be aware of Clause 118

By Rachael Maskell

How do you get around a humiliating defeat in the law courts? Well if you’re Jeremy Hunt, secretary of state for health, you change the law, or more precisely you attempt to sneak through a hastily drafted clause, hide it in bill that it has no business being in, all without any public consultation whatsoever.

We really ought to be very worried about clause 118 of the Care Bill. The Public Bills Committee have finished scrutinising it and it will be back in the commons sometime in the week of the 24 February. Dubbed the hospital closure clause if it is passed by MPs, no English hospital will be safe from fast track, financially driven closure – no matter how successful, solvent or supported by the local community it is.

David Cameron is wrecking our NHS – Unite is so concerned by the threat that it will launch a hard hitting digital ad campaign in the second week of February that pulls no punches in the battle to save hospitals in England from this unsafe clause to drive home the message.

‘No decision about me, without me’, is what the government promised when it forced through the Health and Social Care Act in 2012 against the views of clinicians and NHS campaigners alike. Now it wants to rush through hospital closures in 40 days with only one clinically focused meeting. It could be dismissed as bonkers if it wasn’t so dangerous.

It is this point; the complete lack of clinical input into the decision making process that is particularly worrying. Reconfiguring NHS services can produce outstanding results. The London Stroke Plan has been hailed by politicians as an example of exemplary working across organisational boundaries and has greatly improved clinical outcomes. But it did not happen overnight, nor in 40 days for that matter. It took many months of comprehensive consultation to make work.

Clearly, the reconfiguration of NHS services must always, without fail, be based on sound clinical evidence, supported by both clinicians and the community. This government seems intent on breaking up and selling off the NHS – the civil service should not be dragged into such a nakedly political mission. Clause 118 also flies in the face of the powers this government gave to Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) to commission services locally, in the best interest of patients.

The residents of Lewisham won their high court and appeal court battles to stop Jeremy Hunt downgrading their local A&E and maternity services to bail out the financially struggling South London Trust. But they won’t win again and with one in five hospitals in England running high deficits expect many more losers to come.

There is a very easy solution – the government must scrap clause 118 of the Care Bill and talk to the clinical experts. MPs and peers have had the wool pulled over their eyes once already with the Health and Social Care Act, it beggars belief that they are letting themselves be fooled again.

We now need to stand together to oppose clause 118 at every stage of the legislative process and beyond.

The government has attempted to silence us with the ‘Gagging Bill’, don’t let them take away our voice now. Email your MP and tell them to vote against clause 118.

Rachael Maskell is Head of Health at Unite