Healey: Another broken promise

Monday, 17 January 2011 12:00 AM

John Healey, shadow health secretary, comments on NHS reforms:

"The NHS is another big broken promise from David Cameron. He made the personal pledge to protect the NHS' and his coalition agreement could not have been clearer in saying 'we will stop the top-down internal reorganisations of the NHS that have got in the way of patient care'.

"David Cameron also seems to see the NHS as second rate when everybody else has seen big improvements by Labour in recent years and public satisfaction is now at an all time high. This is an insult to millions of NHS staff.

"Strong criticism from NHS experts, professional bodies and patient groups shows that those who know the health service best fear the government will force competition, price wars and privatisation on the NHS at the expense of good patient care.

"The more NHS staff organisations see of the Tory-led government's plans, the harder they find it to say something in support.

"The general aims are sound but more patient involvement and clinical control of commissioning can be achieved by the evolution of Labour's reforms, not Andrew Lansley's revolution of NHS internal organisation."

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