英国首相继续坚持医疗改革计划

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根据每日电讯报道，英国首相David Cameron将继续支持NHS改革计划，将来GP医生会有更大的权力来直接支配医疗专项费用。

[来源：每日电讯 5月14日]



http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ ... ver-NHS-reform.html

David Cameron to come out fighting over NHS reform
David Cameron is to come out fighting over the NHS and insist that controversial health reforms will go ahead.

Prime Minister David Cameron Photo: REUTERS
By Patrick Hennessy, Political Editor 8:50PM BST 14 May 2011

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In a major speech on Monday, the Prime Minister will say that the health service must change if it is to improve and avoid a future dogged by a succession of crises.

The address, in West London, will open up a major dividing line between the Conservatives and their Liberal Democrat coalition partners over the future of public services. Last weekend Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister, vowed to block NHS reforms unless they were substantially changed.

His intervention is understood to have annoyed Mr Cameron, who also gave an unimpressive performance at Prime Minister's Questions last week when challenged on the NHS by Ed Miliband, the Labour leader.

A senior Tory source said last night: "We need to get out there and show that the NHS is not an issue where we will simply hand the Lib Dems an easy win. Of course, the timing here is extremely significant. There is no option of not reforming it. It has to change to get better."

Mr Cameron is expected to use his speech to "reclaim" the health service as a key issue for the Conservatives after what he sees as a concerted campaign to portray the Tories once again as "the nasty party" on the issue.
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He will underline once more what the NHS means to him personally. He is on record as praising the health service for transforming the life of his family after his son, Ivan was born in April 2002 with cerebral palsy and epilepsy. Ivan died in February 2009 aged six.

Earlier this year Mr Cameron announced a "pause" in the Health and Social Care Bill put forward by Andrew Lansley the Health Secretary.

The Bill, as it stands, aims to give GPs, working in consortia, much more responsibility for spending the NHS's budget in England. It also promotes greater competition with private-sector health providers as part of a total package which will cost £1.4 billion.

Mr Cameron is understood to be planning to replace some of Mr Lansley's hardline proposals with "softer" alternatives being proposed by Stephen Dorrell, the former Tory health secretary who now chairs the Commons health select committee – for example widening GP-led consortia to include nurses, hospital doctors and public health experts.

There has even been speculation that Mr Dorrell was being lined up to replace Mr Lansley – although Mr Cameron signalled last week he did not plan to reshuffle his cabinet this year.

However, the Prime Minister is concerned that the principle of NHS reform itself should not be surrendered.

He was buoyed last week when a group of doctors who lead GPs' consortia said it backed current reform plans wholeheartedly. In a letter published in The Daily Telegraph, the doctors said they wanted the government to press on with its Bill, calling proposed changes "not revolutionary but an evolution".

The letter added: "[They are] a natural conclusion of the GP commissioning role that began with fundholding in the 1990s and, more recently, of the previous government's agenda of GP polysystems and practice-based commissioning."

Yesterday the senior doctor leading a review of the Government's controversial health reforms warned that they would destabilise the NHS and undermine key hospital services.

Professor Steve Field said in a newspaper interview that pressing ahead with giving a watchdog a duty to promote competition could "destroy essential services". However, he later issued a statement, through the Department of Health, saying some of his comments had been taken "out of context".

For Labour, John Healey, the shadow health secretary, said last night: "The Health Bill has stumbled its way through Parliament and is on its last legs. It needs putting out of its misery now.

"The Tory-led Government's handling of the NHS is causing deep uncertainty and concern throughout the health service, compounded by the confusion around the Prime Minister's 'pause' to listen. The public meanwhile are becoming more worried and mistrustful as people see the growing signs of strain in patient services."