NHS could be only part free

The public services policy review launched on Monday by Tony Blair, the prime minister, and Gordon Brown, the chancellor.It says the government should “look at the possibility of drawing up a package of services that all users are entitled to”. Nice, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, could be asked to do that.

The health department confirmed it was “looking at the possibility in the normal process of policy development” and agreed that deciding what everyone was entitled to would also involve deciding “what they are not entitled to”.

Patricia Hewitt, the health secretary, was deputy chairman of a pharmaceutical industry-financed study in 1995 that called for restrictions on free services. But she disowned the report on becoming health secretary, saying the government’s big increase in NHS spending removed the need for such measures.

(source: The Financial Times)

ED: Thank goodness Tony Blair saved the NHS from privatisation