Brown says NHS must embrace wider reforms

The National Health Service faces widespread reforms as it moves to provide more personalised and preventative treatment to patients, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on Monday.

Renewal of the health service will be the government's highest priority, he said, indicating that further change is on the way for the NHS's 1.3 million employees in England.

"To meet the challenges of 21st century healthcare and our 21st century lives, we will have to embrace even deeper and wider reform," Brown said in a wide-ranging speech marking the 60th anniversary of the founding of the NHS.

"We will use all mechanisms available to us to improve our NHS - public, private and voluntary providers can all play their part."

He said there would be no "no-go areas" for change, putting the government on a collision course with doctors' leaders at the British Medical Association (BMA) who reject increasing use of private health providers in the NHS.

"We will reject the views of those who say the NHS must put a moratorium on change and reject those who oppose further reform. This would be a massive failure of leadership," he said.

But he promised that the NHS would continue to provide healthcare free of charge, saying it was cost effective as well as fair for all patients.

In an expansion of preventative care, free screening for stroke, diabetes, heart and kidney disease will be introduced over the next three years.

Tests such as blood screening, electrocardiograms and ultrasound will become available in GP surgeries rather than hospitals.

"Over time, everyone in Britain will have access to the right preventative health check-up," Brown said.

The screening will start with vulnerable groups, such as the elderly, who need it most.

Cases of stroke, diabetes, heart and kidney disease account for a fifth of all hospital admissions. Around 6.2 million people suffer from these conditions which cause 200,000 deaths a year.

The BMA said the government had threatened in December to cut funding for family doctors to support patients with a number of conditions including heart problems, kidney disease and hardening of arteries.

"Today the government says it is going to screen for these very conditions," Richard Vautrey, of the BMA's GP committee, told BBC television.

"The government's health policy simply doesn't join all the dots together."

Conservative Health Spokesman Andrew Lansley said Brown was chasing headlines instead of well-planned policies for the NHS.

"There is no proper timetable for delivery, we don't know where the money's coming from but we do know Brown has raided public health budgets," he said.

Previous pledges by the government to extend preventative care - particularly in encouraging more healthy lifestyles - have foundered, with some of the money allocated being spent plugging budget gaps elsewhere in the NHS.