Reid: Real difference between Labour and Tories on the NHS
Health Secretary John Reid has said that voters at the next election have a real choice to make between Labour and Conservative health plans.
Dr Reid said: “Labour will maintain the founding principle of the NHS that people should have equity of access to health care, free at the point of need.”
And he claimed: “The Conservative Party will introduce charges for operations for the first time in NHS history.”
The Conservatives plan to offer the “right to choose” in health, allowing patients to take a set amount of money with them to finance operations in the private sector or choose which NHS hospitals they are treated in. They also promise to allow all hospitals to apply for foundation status and say they will cut red tape.
Speaking at Paisley University in Glasgow, Dr Reid said that in the upcoming election “it’s relatively easy to see what separates the Labour and Conservatives parties on the public services”.
“Labour is committed to continue the biggest investment programme in the NHS in history,” he continued.
“The Conservative Party – as is made clear by the recent James Report and their previous pledge to use part of health expenditure to subsidise those who can afford to pay for half of their own private operations – want to reduce the amount going to the NHS.”
He accused the Conservatives of being “in a breach of the consensus which has survived some 60 years” and preparing to “introduce the concept of charges for operations within the ambit of NHS commissioned care, for the first time in NHS history”.
In terms of Labour’s campaign for re-election, he said: “We have to show not only that we are different, but that we are relevant to our contemporary world. That isn’t simple, since the world around us is constantly changing.”
Labour’s future relevance, he added, is found in an “unremitting quest to reapply our traditional values in a manner which is relevant to a world changing around us”.
