News from The Labour Party

Blunt eleventh-hour warning Health Secretary should think again on NHS reforms

Labour has responded to the publication today of the Health Select Committee’s report on NHS Commissioning, calling on Health Secretary Andrew Lansley to think again on his planned NHS reforms.

John Healey MP, Labour’s Shadow Health Secretary, said: “The Conservative-led Committee adds an authoritative voice to the barrage of criticism and concern about the Government’s high-risk, high-cost plans to reorganise the NHS.

“This is an eleventh-hour warning to the Health Secretary to think again before he forces through this big NHS reorganisation. The report is blunt in calling the changes ‘disruptive’ and ‘high-risk’, and clear in concluding the reorganisation upheaval will undermine the big NHS challenge to improve both value for money and services for patients.

“The aims of more patient involvement and clinical control of commissioning could be achieved by the evolution of Labour’s reforms rather than Andrew Lansley’s revolution of NHS internal organisation.

“By stressing the widespread ’surprise’ of the reorganisation plans, the Committee confirms this is another big broken promise by the Conservative-led Government.”

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