Posted on 10/07/2006 in Medical Government/ NHS related news Patricia Hewitt, the health secretary, has said that the government will never privatise the NHS and that it was committed to a publicly-funded health service, free at the point of care.
She also said that she was looking at ways of giving primary care trusts greater control over their budgets and get the best possible health services for patients at good value for money.
Ms Hewitt told BBC One's Sunday AM programme: "We will never privatise the health service and the primary care trusts, in particular, certainly cannot outsource their responsibility as public statutory boards for making decisions on behalf of the public."
On the proposals to give primary care trusts greater freedom, she said: " If they want to buy in some additional expertise, and that may well be from the private sector, then the board should be able to do so and that is why we are replacing some framework contracts to allow that to happen."
The health secretary said that private sector involvement should not be ignored if they can provide better services and better value for money.
She concluded by saying that the financial difficulties in the NHS had been overplayed and that only one in ten primary care trusts had "serious" financial concerns.
Last month, some members of the British Medical Association voted in favour of proposals by the Keep Our NHS Public campaign which was started due to concerns that the NHS is being "slowly privatised".
 © Adfero LtdOther news stories from 10/07/2006
Read more in the Zenopa News Archive
How this news is generated
/ / |
