Ex-health secretary Alan Milburn has urged Gordon Brown to scrap Trident and ID cards to prevent cuts to the NHS.
“They may have been priorities in times of plenty. In times of want they are not,” he told a fringe meeting at the Labour conference in Brighton.
Mr Milburn said he did not think the NHS should be “exempt” from the savings set out by the prime minister. And he warned that without fundamental reform the health service’s long-term survival could be in doubt.
In what is likely to be his final appearance at a Labour conference as an MP, Mr Milburn, who is standing down at the next election, said the entire culture of the health service had to change.
That meant devolving power from the centre, abolishing strategic health authorities and handing over primary care trusts to local authority control. He also urged the government to press ahead with the foundation hospital programme saying every hospital in the country should have trust status.
He also called for more use of private contractors - saying he disagreed with current health secretary Andy Burnham who has said priority will always be given to in-house NHS services, saying “quality should be the only yardstick”.
Read more at BBC Health.
Tags: Privatisation
