Reid to press ahead with NHS reforms
The new health secretary yesterday pledged to steam ahead with controversial NHS reforms, introduced by predecessor Alan Milburn, and insisted the Government would not tread on eggshells in doing so.
Secretary of State for Health John Reid, in a speech to the NHS Confederation’s annual conference in Glasgow, told 1,800 senior NHS managers the Government would work doggedly to excise the threat of creating a “two-tier” service.
Foundation hospitals would not undermine “equity of access” he said.
Dr. Reid insisted the affirmation of “equity and fairness” was not a mere “fad” of the Government but “the cornerstone of the NHS itself” and a solid bedrock of Labour party philosophy.
The task for the NHS, “the largest Army for Good in Britain,” which had “turned a corner” under Alan Milburn and the 10-year NHS Plan, was to translate his “radical policies into radical, practical implementation on the ground,” he argued.
Mr. Reid told health professionals: “To create the personalised health service we want it is necessary to accept a fundamental and important truism: that the NHS has not as yet fully succeeded in providing equality of access to health care.
“In terms of fairness. If you wait for an operation for 18 months and the rest of the country gets the operation in 12 months – then that’s unequal and it’s unfair.
“And that’s been the situation up until the last few years.
“In some places at the moment no one is waiting for an operation more than six months – but in many other places they are.
“That’s unequal and cannot fit in with the basic NHS principle of equity.”
