I was in Parliament on Friday to back a Private Members’ Bill brought forward by my colleague Wendy Morton, the MP for Aldridge-Brownhills, at Third Reading.
The NHS (Charitable Trusts Etc.) Bill removes the requirement for the Secretary of State for Health to appoint trustees of NHS charities, thus reducing the involvement of the Department of Health in NHS charities.
The Bill will also enable the new independent Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity to continue to receive crucial Royalties from the Peter Pan stories which were bequeathed to the hospital by JM Barrie. As such, the Bill has earned the nickname ‘the Peter Pan and Wendy Bill’.
NHS charities’ funding supports innovation and research and enables the provision of additional facilities, services and equipment. As well as raising their own funds, they are also the automatic recipients of money the public donate to NHS bodies. As at March 2015, there were around 260 NHS charities, with a combined income of £327m and asset value of £2 billion. The top 30 NHS charities accounted for over two‐thirds of total NHS charity income/assets.
In my speech I said that the Bill had support “not just from this House, but from NHS charities and their representative bodies”, saying,
“It will help to deliver the operating model they require and the freedom that the charities themselves have asked for. It should give them greater independence and greater money-raising potential.”
I then went on to give the example of the Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust Charitable Fund, which works to improve the experiences of all patients within Worcestershire and the surrounding areas.
“One of the fund’s recent appeals is the £1.6 million Rory the Robot appeal, with funds raised going towards the cost of a state-of-the-art da Vinci robotic surgical system, primarily to treat patients with prostate cancer. In Worcestershire alone, 125 to 150 radical prostate cancer operations are carried out each year, and there are approximately 2,500 men in the region surviving prostate cancer at any one time. There is an obvious need that the charity is helping to fill.
People from our region and beyond have got behind this campaign. In September last year, more than 80 cyclists from across the county were joined by Team GB star Hannah Drewett on three cycle routes to raise money for the Rory the Robot appeal. There have also been charity golf days, a theatrical extravaganza and even a local production of “The Full Monty”; hon. Members will be relieved to know that that show was in the constituency of my hon. Friend Karen Lumley and not mine, so fortunately I was not required to participate.”
I concluded,
“This Bill fulfils a Government commitment made in 2014 following a 2012 consultation. Respondents to the consultation were clear that, first, they wanted NHS charities to be allowed to convert to independent status, should they choose to, and secondly, that the powers of the Secretary of State for Health to appoint trustees to NHS bodies should be removed. NHS charities were concerned that the current legislative framework was limiting their freedom to grow, develop and raise money. Change is therefore clearly needed.”