PM to hold summit on NHS reforms

Feb 20 2012

David Cameron is to attempt to shore up support for the Government's controversial NHS reforms with a Downing Street summit on moves to give GPs more power over local health services.

The Prime Minister and Health Secretary Andrew Lansley will hold a roundtable discussion with chairs of the emerging GP-led clinical commissioning groups and leaders of the Royal Colleges.

Amid intense pressure from many professional bodies to drop the Health and Social Care Bill, Mr Cameron will say patients are already beginning to see the fruits of greater GP influence - a key plank of the reforms - in areas where clinical commissioning groups have already been set up.

He will point to evidence that emergency hospital admissions have fallen year-on-year for the first time as GPs have begun to be more central to shaping care for patients and the NHS has moved away from Labour's "targets" culture to the coalition's emphasis on "outcomes".

Department of Health figures show a 0.5% decline in emergency hospital admissions in 2011, compared with a 36% increase between 2001 and 2010.

Mr Lansley said: "We have always been clear that patients will benefit from putting power in the hands of frontline doctors and nurses. By starting to do just that, we are seeing a positive change in the way our NHS is responding to rising pressures. Patients are being treated in more convenient places, pressure on hospitals is reducing, and we are safeguarding the NHS for future generations."

The gathering has attracted controversy after a number of bodies critical of the NHS reforms said they had not been invited. The British Medical Association (BMA) said it would be "odd" if organisations representing health professionals were not invited to the summit.

The Chartered Society of Physiotherapy (CSP), another opponent of the Bill, said it had not been invited either, adding it was "extremely concerning".

Labour leader Ed Miliband said: "You don't get progress on the NHS by shutting the door of Downing Street on doctors, nurses and patients' groups.

"It's not the actions of a Prime Minister to exclude from an NHS meeting the people who are the experts on the health service. The Prime Minister should listen to these experts and drop the Bill."