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Health and Social Care Bill (Programme) (No. 3)

It would apply in any circumstances where it was necessary in order to secure continued access to essential services for patients, so a methodology would be in place. As I have described, the intention is to have a regime through which, although specific mechanisms will be applied to foundation trusts and to other providers—of course, the overwhelming majority of activity is in the hands of foundation trusts—the principles of intervention will be the same between the two sets of providers. We want to arrive, wherever possible, at a consistent application of failure rules. Why? Our concern is to make sure that we deal with this, which has not been the case in the past. Under Labour's regime, if a private sector or independent sector provider failed financially, there was no appropriate mechanism for intervention and continuity of services.