Beautiful Virgin Islands

Friday, Aug 08, 2025

Health bill could see NHS contracts awarded without tender process

Health bill could see NHS contracts awarded without tender process

Campaigners warn new health and care bill could cause a repeat of PPE contracts scandal and lead to an unregulated healthcare market
Private companies could be handed NHS contracts for treating patients without going through a tender process as a result of the government’s shakeup of the NHS, critics claim.

The Labour party, doctors’ leaders and anti-privatisation campaigners warned that the new health and care bill would allow NHS bodies to simply award contracts for clinical care to private healthcare providers without considering other bids.

The bill, which was laid before parliament on Tuesday, sparked fears that it could see repeats of the “Tory cronies” contracts scandal involving multi-billion-pound deals for personal protective equipment during the pandemic replicated in the awarding of contracts covering the care of NHS patients.

The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) said that the bill included plans for “a new procurement regime for the NHS and public health procurement, informed by public consultation, to reduce bureaucracy on commissioners and providers alike, and reduce the need for competitive tendering where it adds limited or no value”. The DHSC added that the plan came from the NHS itself, saying: “The NHS has told us they were wasting precious resources on tendering processes.”

Ministers would not try to influence who gets contracts, the DHSC pledged. “Nothing in the proposed regime will give ministers any say in decisions of the NHS about when to run procurements or who to award contracts to,” it insisted.

Jonathan Ashworth, Labour’s shadow health secretary, said that “after a year when billions in taxpayers’ money has been handed out to Tory cronies for duff PPE and testing contracts, allowing further privatisation with no oversight will be resisted strongly by Labour”.

However, the bill also seeks to roll back privatisation by scrapping section 75 of the Health and Social Care Act 2012, which initiated the last reorganisation of the NHS. That clause provoked criticism because it compelled NHS clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) to put out to tender any contracts worth more than £650,000 a year.

The campaign group Keep Our NHS Public warned that while “the bill has been promoted as an end to privatisation, campaigners believe it’s actually a transition to an unregulated market in healthcare”.

Dr John Lister, the group’s secretary, said the legislation could also see private firms given seats on the boards of the 42 powerful new regional NHS bodies it will create – groupings of NHS trusts – called integrated care systems (ICSs).

NHS Providers and the NHS Confederation, which represent trusts, welcomed the bill’s drive to ensure much more collaboration between providers of different sorts of healthcare and social care. The DHSC said that replacing CCGs with ICSs would help ensure “world-class care” and help the NHS tackle the big backlog of care it is facing, which the Covid pandemic has exacerbated.

But both bodies voiced alarm over the bill handing the health secretary greater “powers of direction” over NHS England, which Richard Murray, chief executive of the King’s Fund, said would lead to “greater ministerial interference in the day-to-day running of the NHS”.

Nigel Edwards, his counterpart at the Nuffield Trust thinktank, said that giving health ministers more power “may lead to worse decisions, and they will come to regret it”. Letting ministers decide which A&E or maternity units stay open or are closed “risks gridlock” on such issues.

He added that allowing the health secretary to appoint the chair of ICS boards could lead to “political figures being put in charge, [and] some might push local services to achieve political goals for whichever party is in power, instead of quietly serving the interests of patients”.

Matthew Taylor, the NHS Confederation’s chief executive, said the extra powers also carry with them “the risk that [NHS] arm’s-length bodies, including NHS England and NHS Improvement, could be split up or abolished without any real scrutiny”.

The bill is due to have its second reading in parliament next week.
Newsletter

Related Articles

Beautiful Virgin Islands
0:00
0:00
Close
Trump Administration Increases Reward for Arrest of Venezuelan President Maduro to Fifty Million Dollars
Armenia and Azerbaijan to Sign US-Brokered Framework Agreement for Nakhchivan Corridor
British Labour Government Utilizes Counter-Terrorism Tools for Social Media Monitoring Against Legitimate Critics
OpenAI Launches GPT‑5, Its Most Advanced AI Model Yet
Embarrassment in Britain: Homelessness Minister Evicted Tenants and Forced to Resign
President Trump nominated Stephen Miran, his top economic adviser and a critic of the Federal Reserve, to temporarily fill an open Fed seat
The AI-Powered Education Revolution: Market Potential and Transformative Impact
Chikungunya Virus Outbreak in Southern China: Over 7,000 Hospitalized
French wine makers have seen catastrophic damage to vines that were almost ready to be harvested after the worst fires in more than 70 years burned through the south of the country
US Lawmaker Probes Intel CEO’s China Ties Amid National Security Concerns
Brazilian President Lula says he’ll contact the leaders of BRICS states to propose a unified response to U.S. tariffs
Trump Open to Meeting Putin as Soon as Next Week, with Possible Trilateral Summit Including Zelenskiy
Katy Perry and Justin Trudeau spark dating rumors, joining high stakes world of celeb-politician romances
US envoy Steve Witkoff arrived in Moscow to seek a breakthrough in the Ukraine war ahead of President Trump’s peace deadline
WhatsApp Deletes 6.8 Million Scam Accounts Amid Rising Global Fraud
Nine people have been hospitalized and dozens of salmonella cases have been reported after an outbreak of infections linked to certain brands of pistachios and pistachio-containing products, according to the Public Health Agency of Canada
Karol Nawrocki Inaugurated as Poland’s President, Setting Stage for Clash with Tusk Government
Trump Signals JD Vance as ‘Most Likely’ MAGA Successor for 2028
US Charges Two Chinese Nationals for Illegal Nvidia AI Chip Exports
Texas Residents Face Water Restrictions While AI Data Centers Consume Millions of Gallons
U.S. Tariff Policy Triggers Market Volatility Amid Growing Global Trade Tensions
Tariffs, AI, and the Shifting U.S. Macro Landscape: Navigating a New Economic Regime
Representative Greene Urges H-1B Visa Cuts Amid U.S.-India Trade Tensions
U.S. House Committee Subpoenas Clintons and Senior Officials in Epstein Investigation
Sydney Sweeney Registered as Republican as Controversial American Eagle Ad Sparks Debate
Trump Accuses Major Banks of Politically Motivated Account Denials and Prepares Executive Order
TikTok Removes Huda Kattan Video Over Anti-Israel Conspiracy Claims
Trump Threatens Tariffs on India Over Russian Oil Imports
German Finance Minister Criticizes Trump’s Attacks on Institutions
U.S. Proposes Visa Bond of Up to $15,000 for Some Applicants
U.S. Farmers Increase Lobbying Amid Immigration Crackdown
Elon Musk Receives $23.7 Billion Tesla Stock Award
Texas House Paralyzed After Democrats Walk Out Over Redistricting
Mexican Cartels Complicate Sheinbaum’s U.S. Security Talks
Mark Zuckerberg Declares War on the iPhone
India Rejects U.S. Tariff Threat, Defends Russian Oil Purchases
United States Establishes Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and Digital Asset Stockpile
Thousands of Private ChatGPT Conversations Accidentally Indexed by Google
China Tightens Mineral Controls, Curtailing Critical Inputs for Western Defence Contractors
OpenAI’s Bold Bet: Teaching AI to Think, Not Just Chat
Tesla Seeks Shareholder Approval for $29 Billion Compensation Package for Elon Musk
Nvidia is cutting prices on its RTX 50-series graphics cards after sales slowed and inventories piled up
Ghislaine Maxwell Transferred to Minimum-Security Prison Amid Ongoing DOJ Discussions
U.S. Tariffs Surge to Highest Levels in Nearly a Century Under Second Trump Term
Matt Taibbi Slams Media for Role in Russiagate Narrative
Pilots Call for Mental Health Support Without Stigma
All Five Trapped Miners Found Dead After El Teniente Mine Collapse
Ong Beng Seng Pleads Guilty in Corruption Case Linked to Former Singapore Transport Minister
BP’s Largest Oil and Gas Find in 25 Years Uncovered Offshore Brazil
Italy Fines Shein One Million Euros for Misleading Sustainability Claims
×