Health Scrutiny agrees to my request to scrutinise controversial plan for Accountable Care System in Devon from 1st April – I tell them there is no public consensus for private companies running our NHS
Yesterday’s meeting of the Devon Health and Adult Care Scrutiny Committee agreed to my request for a special meeting to discuss the introduction of an Accountable Care System in Devon, if this goes ahead as planned on 1st April. However if the system is delayed, it will discuss the system at its scheduled meeting on 22nd March.
I told the Committee that in the light of the controversial nature of Accountable Care Systems, it was wrong that no consultation had been held with the Committee, the County Council or the public.
I pointed out that in Cornwall, an open inquiry into a similar proposal had been held, and that the parliamentary Health Select Committee, at the instigation of Dr Sarah Wollaston MP, had launched an inquiry into Accountable Care Organisations (ACOs), the new kind of contract proposed within Accountable Care Systems. Jeremy Hunt, the Secretary of State, had welcomed this inquiry and while the Committee was meeting, NHS England announced a 12-week public consultation into these organisations.
I said that a major concern was that ACOs would be 10-15 year commercial contracts and could be given to private providers. Although NHS England’s statements points out that the two contracts so far proposed are going to NHS organisations, Mr Hunt’s letter to Dr Wollaston on 22nd January makes it clear that they can equally go to private companies. ‘Especially after Carillion, there is no public consensus that private companies should run large areas of our NHS’, I told the committee.
Moreover, at the hear of ACOs is the idea of ‘capitated care’, which I told the committee ‘could lead to rationing of routine operations and treatments, forcing better-off patients into private care and leaving a second-class service for those who rely on the NHS’.
Seaton & Colyton MATTERS 
January 26, 2018 at 4:37 pm
Thanks Martin
Ken
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March 23, 2018 at 8:59 pm
[…] my request for Health Scrutiny to consider the CCGs’ plans (at the last meeting in January), and challenges to the Conservatives’ attempts to push them through at DCC’s Cabinet […]
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