Health and Care Bill: competition
Updated 10 March 2022
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The Health and Social Care Committee said:
We warmly welcome, in principle, NHS England and NHS Improvement바카라 사이트™s proposals to promote collaboration. We believe collaboration, rather than competition, as an organising principle, is a better way for the NHS and the wider health and care system to respond to today바카라 사이트™s challenges.
This fact sheet explains how the government plans to remove the Competition and Markets Authority and NHS Improvement (as Monitor바카라 사이트™s) formal roles in enforcing competition between NHS providers.
Background
There is a growing consensus within the NHS that collaboration across NHS organisations is increasingly important to ensure the NHS continues to deliver high quality care and long-term sustainability.
While competition can drive service improvement and should continue to do so where it can add value, the current legislation contains a range of competition rules and powers that can be inflexible, and a barrier to successful integration in the NHS.
For example, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has specific powers to review mergers involving foundation trusts (FTs). It has become clear that the CMA is not the right body to review NHS mergers, and we believe the NHS should be able to make decisions about provider mergers themselves. NHS Improvement also has duties to promote competition in the NHS, and to co-operate with the CMA. To reflect NHS Improvement바카라 사이트™s merger with NHS England, the new NHS England바카라 사이트™s primary role will be to support improvement in the quality of care and use of NHS resources, rather than regulate competition within the NHS.
In addition to this, NHS Improvement uses licence conditions to regulate providers of NHS services. When NHS Improvement propose changes to the licence conditions, the CMA has powers to review those changes if a sufficient number of providers object. We think the NHS should be able to make its own decisions on the provider licence.
What the Bill will do
The Bill will deliver a number of changes to:
- remove the CMA function to review mergers involving NHS foundation trusts.바카라 사이트¯The CMA바카라 사이트™s jurisdiction in relation to transactions바카라 사이트¯involving non-NHS bodies바카라 사이트¯would be unchanged, and the CMA will continue to enforce competition in the private healthcare market.바카라 사이트¯ NHS England will review all mergers between NHS Foundation Trusts, to ensure they are in the best interest of their populations. 바카라 사이트¯
- remove NHS Improvement바카라 사이트™s specific competition functions and its general duty to prevent anti-competitive behaviour바카라 사이트¯to support NHS England바카라 사이트™s role as an improvement agency, rather than an economic and competition regulator 바카라 사이트¯
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remove the need for NHS Improvement to refer contested바카라 사이트¯license바카라 사이트¯conditions or to the바카라 사이트¯CMA
- introduce new powers for NHS England to provide information and assistance to the CMA, where this is required for the CMA to carry out their functions
How these provisions will help to reduce bureaucracy
These changes will enable the NHS to make sensible decisions about provider mergers and changing licence conditions without the involvement of external bodies. They will allow the system to adapt, evolve and integrate, without the need for complex and bureaucratic workarounds.