Prime Minister David Cameron gives out “five guarantees” regarding the future of the NHS in England amid details of when changes to planned reforms will be considered. He promised that NHS will remain free at the point of use, care will be improved and budgets will rise and waiting times will be “kept low”.
A group looking at how controversial NHS reforms can be improved is expected to report to Cabinet early next week. The ‘Future Forum’ was set up to lead the consultation on the coalition's proposed shake-up of the NHS.
The Government plans to give GPs more commissioning powers, increase competition in the NHS and abolish primary care trusts. This has been criticized by medical professionals and is on hold pending the results of a “listening exercise” which concluded last week. Mr. Cameron will say that ministers have “learnt a lot about how to make our plans better” during the two-month consultation.
He promises, “We will modernize the NHS - because changing the NHS today is the only way to protect the NHS for tomorrow…We will stick by our core principle of an NHS that is more efficient, more transparent and more diverse... But I will make sure at all times that any of the changes we make to the NHS will always be consistent with upholding these five guarantees. There can be no compromise on this. It is what patients expect. It is what doctors and nurses want. And it is what this government will deliver.” Ministers have already conceded there will be substantial changes to the Health and Social Care Bill as a result of the process but the opposition, and the doctors' body the British Medical Association, have called for the legislation to be scrapped entirely.
Labour said the PM had broken pledges on the NHS and could not be trusted. “David Cameron is desperately trying to make 'I love the NHS' his signature tune but the reality is very different,” Shadow Health Secretary John Healey said. “With real terms cuts to funding, more patients waiting longer and ideological plans to break up services, he has broken his personal pledge to protect the NHS and is instead taking it backwards. The NHS is not safe in his hands,” he added.
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