House of Commons – March 16, 2011 – 233

I beg to move, That this House supports the founding principles of the National Health Service (NHS);

therefore welcomes the improvements patients have seen in the NHS and supports steps further to ensure the NHS is genuinely centred on patients and carers, achieves quality and outcomes that are among the best in the world, refuses to tolerate unsafe care, involves clinicians in decision-making and enables healthcare providers to innovate, improves transparency and accountability, is more efficient and gives citizens greater say;

recognises however that all of those policies and aspirations can be achieved without adopting the damaging and unjustified market-based reorganisation that is proposed, and already being implemented, by the Government;

notes the strength of concerns being raised by independent experts, patient groups and professional bodies about the Government’s NHS reorganisation;

further notes the similar concerns expressed by the Liberal Democrat Party spring conference;

and therefore urges the Government to halt the implementation of the reorganisation and pause the progress of the legislation in order to re-think their plans and honour the Prime Minister’s promise to protect the NHS.