Peter Pan

I was up early this morning as I was booked to do an interview on LBC on 7 day a week appointments for doctors. I think that it is a good idea that if someone is ill at the weekend they should be able to see a doctor. The Government have been conducting a pilot and one of the schemes has been down in Radcliffe.

Now I know you will be thinking why did I call today’s post Peter Pan. Well the first Bill for debate his morning is the NHS ( Charitable Trusts etc ) Bill. What this Bill does is remove the right from the secretary of State to appoint Trustees to NHS Charities so they can be seen to be more independent of Government. They will only need to comply with charity legislation rather than both NHS and charity legislation so there will be less bureaucracy for them. Peter Pan comes into it because back in 1929 JM Barrie the author of Peter Pan left the royalties to the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Sick Children in London. It has been a valuable source of income for the Hospital down the years. Under copyright law the right to receive royalties only lasted for 50 years after the death of the author. JM Barrie died in 1937 so in 1988 a special law was introduced to give the Peter Pan Royalties to Great Ormond Street Hospital in perpetuity. The royalties go to a special trust which would not be covered by the general changes in the first part of the new Bill so there is a Second Part which specifically refers to the Great Ormond Street Hospital. I support the Bill.
Once this Bill has been debated the Second Bill scheduled for debate is the Off Patent Drug Bill which provides for the Secretary of State to seek approval for the use of drugs when a new use is discovered for them after their initial patent period has expired. This Bill is supported by a number of medical charities and I am a co-sponsor of this Bill.