TUC: Dog’s dinner of a bill

Brendan Barber, Trades Union Congress general secretary warns that the health and social care bill is still fundamentally flawed:

"This report sets out to reassure those who have been so critical of the Health and Social Care Bill and of the immense changes it is seeking to bring to the NHS.

"But whilst well-meaning, any attempt to bring clarity to what started out as a fundamentally flawed bill was always going to be difficult. We are still left with a dog’s dinner of a bill.

"Downplaying competition in Monitor's remit is all well and good in theory, but the unenviable task of attempting to balance this with choice and collaboration in practice is still likely to mean that it is patients, particularly the most vulnerable, who will end up losing out."