THE NHS has been saved from disaster after “dramatic” changes to the troubled Health Bill, rebel Liberal Democrat MP John Pugh said.
The Southport MP – one of the first to warn of looming “chaos and confusion” – threw his weight behind the hastily-written overhaul, to be confirmed by David Cameron today.
Dr Pugh said his key concerns over huge budgets being handed to GPs, a lack of “democratic accountability” and creeping privatisation of the NHS had now been met.
But he stepped back from echoing Lib-Dem claims it was the junior coalition party which forced the Conservatives into U-turns.
Instead, Dr Pugh said: “We are now moving in a better direction. In most of the areas where I raised problems in a paper I wrote a few months ago, the necessary changes were made. However, we still need to amend the legislation to ensure what is now proposed is actually delivered. It still needs careful scrutiny and we still need to look at the details.”
That scrutiny is likely to involve slamming the Health and Social Care Bill into reverse to allow many more months of line-by-line scrutiny by a committee of MPs, including Dr Pugh.
He added: “It is a worthwhile and important battle, but it can feel as though one is being sent back to the trenches!"
