Exclusive: re-written Health Bill will put competition panel on statutory footing

HSJ understands that under an agreed set of alterations to the bill, consortia will also be prevented from sub-contracting their core commissioning duties.

A senior parliamentary source said the Co-operation and Competition Panel will be made a statutory body, with the same duties as it currently has, overseeing patient choice, competition between providers and mergers in the NHS.

The source said the two coalition parties opted to have a competition regulator specific to the NHS, rather than leave the issue to the Office of Fair Trading, but not to pass the duty to Monitor as a new economic regulator as planned.

Monitor, meanwhile, is to have its main duty as set out in the bill completely altered. The controversial “duty to promote competition” in the NHS will be replaced by a duty to “protect and promote patients’ interests”, intended to ensure an increasingly joined-up health service.

Health and wellbeing boards will not be given the right to veto any decisions made by a commissioning consortium. However, they will be able to refer decisions to the NHS Commissioning Board.

The NHS Commissioning Board will be also required to encourage the integration of services, while consortia boards will be mandated to include nurses and hospital doctors.

HSJ has also been told there will be additional safeguards against private sector providers “cherry picking” the most lucrative treatments.

Education and training will be paid for through a levy on providers, replacing the current top-slice of the NHS budget.

The role of the secretary of state will also be re-established in the rewritten bill, in wording “similar or identical to the 1946 Act” which established the NHS. As the bill currently stands, the health secretary would no longer have the duty to provide health services.