Care Bill — Clause 118 — Duties of Special Administrators of NHS Trusts — 12 May 2014 at 17:00

The majority of MPs voted against requiring special administrators of NHS trusts to act "without restricting access to", rather than "without harming", essential services".

Special administrators may be appointed by the Secretary of State to take over the functions of the chairman and directors of an NHS trust.

The amendment rejected in this vote was:

• Amendment (a) proposed to Lords amendment 40B.

The rejected amendment (a) in question stated^[2]:

• In subsection (3A)(ii), line 6, leave out ‘harming essential’ and insert ‘restricting access to'

Had it been accepted this would have amended Lords Amendment 40B which stated^[3]:

• Page 102, line 19, at end insert—
• “(3A) In subsection (5)(a) of that section, for “would achieve the objective set out in section 65DA(1)(a)” substitute “—
• (i) would achieve the objective set out in section 65DA(1)(a), and
• (ii) would do so without harming essential services provided for the purposes of the NHS by any other NHS foundation trust or NHS trust that provides services under this Act to the commissioner,”.”
• (3B) After subsection (7) of that section insert—
• “(8) Where the administrator recommends taking action in relation to another NHS foundation trust or an NHS trust, the references in subsection :(5) to a commissioner also include a reference to a person to which the other NHS foundation trust or the NHS trust provides services under this Act that would be affected by the action.
• (9) A service provided by an NHS foundation trust or an NHS trust is an essential service for the purposes of subsection (5) if the person making the statement in question is satisfied that the criterion in section 65DA(3) is met.
• (10)Section 65DA(4) applies to the person making the statement when that person is determining whether that criterion is met.”

This was to take effect on Clause 118 of the Bill^[4] which relates to the powers of an administrator appointed to run a NHS trust (for example if the trust is in financial difficulties). Specifically Clause 118 amends section 65O of the [National Health Service Act 2006] which was introduced by Section 16 of the Health Act 2009 and defines a “trust special administrator” as a person appointed under section 65B(6)(a) or section 65M(1)(a) which were also introduced by that section and describe the process for the appointment and dismissal of an administrator.

The objective of trust special administration set out in Section 65DA of National Health Service Act 2006, the amendment which was the subject of that vote would have required the administrator to act "without restricting access to" rather than "without harming essential services...".

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• [1] Parliament's webpage on the Care Bill
• [2] Amendment sheet for the Commons consideration of the Lords amendments to the Care Bill on 12 May 2014
• [3] Amendment sheet containing Lords amendment 40B
• [4] Clause 118 of the Care Bill which the amendment would have affected

Debate in Parliament | Source |