The Liberal Democrat health policy in three sentences

Yesterday I blogged about the problems facing the Liberal Democrats on the NHS Bill:

Despite the wishes of some members, unless something goes completely wrong in the next couple of weeks the party overall is unlikely to push for the withdrawal of the Bill. That is because it contains many policies the Liberal Democrats have long-called for, such as the better integration of health and social care and the shift of powers to local councils – and complete withdrawal would raise more awkward questions about why the leadership had backed the reforms in the first place.

However, anything short of a dramatic measure (such as Part Three of the Bill completely), brings with it a big political risk for the party, which has already seen the impact of its post-pause ‘wins’ dissipated by further opposition to the Bill. A host of technical changes to the legislation will get politically lost in the simple, top-level picture that most members of the public do not trust the Tories on the NHS and most health professional bodies do not trust Andrew Lansley.

The ‘official leadership line’ is that a set of further amendments from Tim Clement-Jones will, if passed, secure important substantive changes to the Bill and thereby fix both the policy and political problems.

He too yesterday took to blogging about the NHS Bill, explaining his amendments that are going to the vote in the House of Lords next week:

Widespread competition was introduced to the NHS by Labour’s 2006 National Health Service Act, but without the public debate that is now taking place…

In the Lords, myself and colleagues are working hard to plug the loopholes left in Labour’s 2006 Health Act…

We will be trying to plug Labour’s loopholes at Report Stage of the Bill by pressing amendments:

• to cut out Competition Commission involvement in reviewing Monitor and the effectiveness of competition in the NHS
• to retain the regulation of Foundation Trusts beyond 2016
• and ensure that under EU law NHS activities are where possible excluded from the rigour of EU competitition law, so that patients come first

Tim’s post only gives a hint of the political messaging that flows from them in his headline: Plugging the loopholes left by Labour. With most of the public concern being about what the Conservatives are up to, that isn’t in itself enough, important though some of those loopholes are.

No-one has yet ‘officially’ produced a more comprehensive form of words, and “What do we want? Foundation Trust regulation post-2016!” won’t exactly cut it.

A more comprehensive version of the leadership’s position would be something like: “Labour started privatisation. The Tories wanted more of it. The Liberal Democrats are cutting it“.