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Burnham: NHS 'not for sale' in Labour hands | |
(about 5 hours later) | |
Shadow Health Secretary Andy Burnham has said Labour will put "people before profit" in the NHS, as he promised to "rescue a shattered service". | |
He told the Labour conference its blueprint for an NHS "personal to you and your family" would be at the centre of its general election campaign. | |
Terminally ill patients would have the right to free palliative care at home. | |
Labour has said it will inject £2.5bn into the NHS to pay for 36,000 more GPs, nurses and other professionals. | |
On Tuesday, Ed Miliband announced plans for a "time for care" fund to pay for 20,000 more nurses, 8,000 more GPs, 5,000 more care workers and 3,000 midwives by 2020 - paid for by a crackdown on corporate tax loopholes, a "mansion tax" and a levy on cigarette makers. | |
Mr Burnham said the one of the first acts of a Labour government would be to repeal the coalition's re-organisation of the NHS in England to stop what he said was its "dismantling". | |
'Election battle' | |
A Labour government would reinstate the NHS as "preferred provider" of services and ensure hospitals worked together rather than in competition with each other, he told delegates. | |
"We will free the NHS from David Cameron's market... The market is not the answer to 21st Century health and care." | |
Next year's election, he argued, would be a "battle for the soul" of the NHS. | |
"So today we serve notice on David Cameron and Nick Clegg: Thursday 7th May 2015 - your day of reckoning on the NHS. | |
"A reckoning for trashing the public's most prized asset without their permission. And a reckoning for a ruinous reorganisation that has dragged it down and left it on the brink." | |
While the NHS would "never be for sale" under Labour, he said "radical" structural change was needed if it was to meet the growing demands placed on it in a time of austerity. | |
A future Labour government would pursue the full integration of health and social care services, a move which could save billions, put social care on an equal footing and "complete the vision" of former Labour minister Aneurin Bevan, regarded as the architect of the NHS. | |
Carers' rights | |
Labour, he said, would address the "ever-increasing hospitalisation" of older people by transforming all hospital trusts and NHS bodies into integrated care organisations. | |
"It makes no sense to cut simple support in people's homes only to spend thousands keeping them in hospital. We can't afford it. It will break the NHS." | |
As part of a shake-up of palliative care, he said patients would be given the right to die at home "where clinically possible". | |
Up to 60,000 people on the "end of life register" could potentially be offered free care at home in their final few months, starting with those with substantial social care needs. | |
He also announced new rights for carers, including ring-fenced funding for a respite break, the right to an annual health check and assistance with parking charges. | |
But BBC health correspondent Nick Triggle said it was "not yet clear" what Labour's £2.5bn pledge would mean for the NHS, given the coalition government had actually increased the budget by a similar amount in cash terms. | |
For the Conservatives, Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt said Mr Burnham failed to mention NHS failures - including the Mid-Staffordshire scandal - under the last Labour government. | |
"Andy Burnham talked about NHS privatisation that isn't happening," he tweeted. | |
"Less than five minutes after criticising the Health and Social Care Act, Burnham promises a reorganisation of the NHS." |