Brighton & Hove Labour have expressed concern over the potential impact of the Tory-led Government’s controversial plans for the NHS on the running of local health services in the city.

The concern follows another u-turn by the Tory-led government, this time on a key plank of the Health and Social Care Bill that would have allowed price competition into the NHS, making it easier for companies to outbid each other to provide cheaper services. Under pressure from Labour’s Shadow Health Secretary, John Healey and health sector experts, who highlighted how lower prices in health services almost always lead to lower quality care, the Tory-led government has been forced to drop the move.

Meanwhile, Labour also have concerns at Government plans to fragment the NHS into a number of organisations, acting upon their own interest rather than working together to improve patient services in Brighton & Hove. The Tory-led Government plan to establish a new quango, the National Commissioning Board, and replace Primary Care Trusts with 300 new commissioning consortia.

Brighton & Hove Labour Leader, Councillor Gill Mitchell, said:

“The Tory-led Government should be ashamed of their decision to allow the fragmentation of the health services across Brighton & Hove. They are undermining NHS values and helping to pave the way for the break-up of patient services.

“As well as being a Councillor, I actually work for the NHS and I fear that fragmenting the NHS in this way will simply make it much more difficult for the city council to jointly commission health and social care services.

“Tory Ministers now insist they never wanted price competition, despite being asked for clarification by Labour, on whether they sought to turn the NHS into a free market, nearly two weeks ago. Such chaos and incompetence has the potential to impact negatively on every family doctor’s surgery.”

Labour’s Shadow Health Secretary, John Healey, added:

“David Cameron’s reckless overhaul of the health service is not what people expected when he pledged to protect the NHS. The NHS is his biggest broken promise to date.”

“The Tory-led Government’s plan to waste £2 billion on an unnecessary top-down re-organisation of the NHS is descending into disarray. We are witnessing almost weekly flip-flops over a Bill which no-one seems to want apart from the Prime Minister and his Health Secretary.”