The Government is to withdraw and redraft proposed regulations which appeared to require Clinical Commissioning Groups to put ALL service contracts out to tender.
A storm of opposition from patients and medical profession in Parliament and outside has caused the Government to withdraw these regulations, which might otherwise have passed Parliamentary approval on the nod. They would have caused major expense, delay and loss of control by commissioning groups as every service contract would have had to have been openly advertised and tendered. Opponents cited assurances made by Ministers during the passage of the Health and Social Care Act through Parliament, which appeared to give commissioning clinicians the choice of when to put services out to tender, according to the best interests of patients.