Lib Dem pressure forces Jeremy Hunt to rewrite NHS provider regulations Jeremy Hunt accused Labour of creating false 'bogeymen' by saying that the procurement regulations were a route to the backdoor privatisation of the NHS. The health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, is to be forced by his Liberal Democrat coalition partners to rewrite controversial regulations that prompted Labour warnings of a backdoor privatisation of the NHS. Hours after the health secretary accused Labour of scare tactics, government sources said Hunt was prepared to review the regulations to satisfy the Lib Dems amid fears of a fresh rebellion over health reforms at the party's spring conference. Ed Miliband moved to exploit coalition divisions by signing up the rebel Lib Dem MP Andrew George to support a Commons early day motion calling for the regulations to be "annulled." The Department of Health sparked the row last week by publishing guidelines - known as section 75 regulations - explaining how procurement should work under the Health and Social Care Act that finally entered the statute book last year after a bitter coalition battle. Labour says the regulations would promote private providers by forcing new clinical commissioning groups to consider them on the same basis as existing NHS providers. The guidelines say that the new clinical commissioning groups, established in the Act, must "treat providers equally and in a non-discriminatory way, including by not treating a provider, or type of provider, more favourably than any other provider, in particular on the basis of ownership." Hunt accused Labour of creating false "bogeymen" after Jamie Reed, the shadow health minister, challenged him over the regulations in the Commons. Reed told the health secretary: "It cannot benefit NHS patients for core clinical services to be given to private providers that do not have to conform to the same standards of transparency as those in the NHS. Will the secretary of state see reason, ensure a level playing field for the NHS and withdraw the section 75 regulations without delay? Hunt replied: "Who exactly are the section-75 bogeymen [he] hates: Whizz-Kidz who are supplying services to disabled children in Tower Hamlets? Or Mind, which is supplying psychological therapy to people in Middlesbrough? The reality is that those regulations are completely consistent with the procurement guidelines that his government sent to primary care trusts. He needs to stop trying to pretend that we are doing something different from what his government were doing when in fact we are doing exactly the same. Coalition tensions were highlighted shortly afterwards when Norman Lamb, the Lib Dem health minister, raised concerns about the regulations amid fears of another rebellion at his party's spring conference next month - one year after the last such conference voted against the health and social care bill. "We are looking at this extremely seriously," Lamb told his Lib Dem colleague Andrew George in the Commons. Clear assurances were given in the other place during the passage of the legislation, and it is important that they are complied with in the regulations. It is understood that Lamb was referring to an assurance by Earl Howe, the health minister, given to peers on 6 March 2012, as the government fought to save the health bill days before the Lib Dem spring conference refused to endorse it. Howe said: "Clinicians will be free to commission services in the way they consider best. We intend to make it clear that commissioners will have a full range of options and that they will be under no legal obligation to create new markets, particularly where competition would not be effective in driving high standards and value for patients. A source close to Hunt said the health secretary would sit down with Lib Dem peers opposed to the regulations. "We are aware that there are concerns over the wording and the way it may be interpreted," the source said. We are speaking to the Lib Dem peers to make sure they are happy. We want to make sure everyone is happy. Andy Burnham, the shadow health secretary, said the regulations "directly contradict" assurances by Nick Clegg and other ministers that the new act would not promote the transfer of NHS services to the private sector. Burnham said of the regulations: "They say all services must be tendered - every existing NHS service must be tendered unless there is a justification. It is a recipe for fragmentation. Care is too fragmented. If every service has to be tendered the NHS is on a fast-track to fragmentation. The shadow health secretary earlier warned that "crude cuts" to frontline care in the NHS has led to a noticeable decline in the number of nurses. He warned that some NHS trusts were "sailing close to the wind" after new figures showed that 12,000 nursing posts are due to be lost between 2010-2015. Burnham said: "[The] Francis [report] made recommendations around raising the question of staff-patient ratios. We think they are sensible. So I am saying we are accepting those recommendations. We hope the government will. The CQC [Care Quality Commission] has said in its last annual report that 16% of hospitals in England do not have adequate staffing levels. It feels to us that corners are being cut, some risks are being taken with patient care. We can't say what would be the direct consequences of that. But, given recent history, we do not think these are cuts that should be being made particularly given that the pressure on the frontline is increasing every year with the ageing population. Some trusts are sailing close to the wind. That is why this trend needs to be reversed.