Brown planning NHS changes

Sunday, 28 June 2009 12:00 AM

Prime minister Gordon Brown is set to announce changes to cancer care on the NHS.

In his Building Britain's Future document tomorrow, Mr Brown is set to unveil proposals under which NHS primary care trusts, which fail to give cancer patients treatment within two weeks of a GP referral, would have to pay for private consultations.

In an interview with the Guardian, the minister in charge of reform in public services, Liam Byrne said the government was considering changing its approach to the NHS.

He said changes would be introduced to ensure that the state is a "guarantor of rights", with the paper reporting that improved personal tuition in schools, minimum waiting times for GPs and improved access to policemen were all on the cards as well.

"We know the argument for public services has got to change so we have been developing a strategy that takes public services away from a target culture to giving people rights and entitlement to core public services," he told the paper yesterday.

Tags:
• health
,
• labour
,
• party politics