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Acevo writes to Gordon Brown over sector access to health contracts
By John Plummer, Third Sector Online, 8 March 2010
Chief executives body wants the Government to change policy that the NHS is the preferred provider
Stephen Bubb, head of chief executives body Acevo, has written to the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, urging him to revise the Government's policy of making the NHS the preferred provider of health services.
Bubb said the policy, set out last year by the health secretary, Andy Burnham, had "serious implications" for the Government's vision of supporting the development of the voluntary sector.
"We believe this new policy of treating the NHS as a preferred provider is a direct breach of the Government's manifesto pledge to treat the third sector on equal terms," Bubb wrote. "We urge you strongly to reverse this policy."
The letter was written after the Co-operation and Competition Panel for NHS-funded services decided not to take further Acevo's complaint about a primary care trust excluding charities from bidding for community services contracts.
Acevo had hoped the panel would provide more clarity on the issue.
The panel's decision not to proceed prompted the shadow health secretary, Andrew Lansley, to ask the Office of Fair Trading to investigate Burnham's policy.
"It is clear that NHS organisations are continuing to apply the policy and extending it to a wide range of procurements," Lansley wrote to the OFT. "In doing so, they are acting in a way that is to the detriment of patients across the country."
An OFT spokeswoman said: "We can confirm we have received the letter and will respond in due course."
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Mark Johnson, Tpp law, 8 March 2010, 12:36
It is absolutely scandalous that one person's individual agenda has been allowed to stifle competition and innovation in a nascent healthcare market. The Panel should stand up to this interference and continue to rule on the issue. All those innovators who have been encouraged \(and funded at taxpayers' expense) to launch spin outs through the right to request will be looking on in despair at this shocking lack of leadership and clarity. Full marks to ACEVO for pursuing this issue with vigour.
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Bernard Collier, 8 March 2010, 14:22
It would be wrong to assume that ACEVO stand in the vanguard of a groundswell of Voluntary and Community sector organisations. In fact the prominence of ACEVO skews the voice of the sector towards a very select group of organisations.
The over emphasis on contracts as being the sole focus for funding the sector misses the point and may represent a small section of national organisations that fund ACEVO but in no way has credence amongst the rest.
I would imagine most organisations, want to provide complementary services with an emphasis on their community \(whatever that might be), rather than compete with the NHS. All the talk of nascent markets leaves people cold and has little affect on better health outcomes locally.
ACEVO is in no way the keeper of the soul of the sector and in many cases simply wants to sell it for commercial gain. The sectors values are worth so much more than that. This whole issue looks like a political move by ACEVO simply to curry favour with a potential new government.
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Catherine Clark, 8 March 2010, 14:53
As an ex-American who is very, very, very glad to be living in the UK and cared for by the NHS, however flawed \(when wrong, to be made right), I must strongly object to ACEVO's lobbying on this issue. There must be no 'market' in health care, with its implied encouragement of competition and bottom line.
If society has unmet needs that can be fulfilled by charities, fine -- either in the short-term or, as Bernard Collier says, locally. There is also room for innovation in health care provision, but I would want successful private- or third-sector innovations to become NHS practice.
I hope the government, however constituted, sticks to its guns on this one.
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