Cameron unveils NHS blueprint

Published on Sunday 8 October 2006 01:24

DAVID Cameron is set to start his campaign to rebuild Britain's troubled public services with a demand for health chiefs to be freed from Whitehall targets and meddling ministers.

An investigation into the state of the National Health Service, ordered by the Tory leader, will tomorrow call for the organisation to be given more independence to decide what local people need, rather than what Whitehall demands.

The interim report from Cameron's Public Services Policy Group will lay out a blueprint for an NHS where health professionals have more say over local services.

And the party hinted last night that the emerging policies in the document would get their first airing in the Scottish parliamentary elections next May.

"The report will call for a new partnership with the professions, where centralised Whitehall management targets are replaced with more professional responsibility," a Tory spokeswoman said.

"Rather than having lots of arbitrary management targets, ministers should set broader objectives in terms of health outcomes and then allow more discretion to health professionals and more local decision-making to decide how best to deliver those health objectives."

The report is the latest of a series of presentations by panels set up to scrutinise every aspect of potential public service reform under a Cameron government.

Cameron has made it clear to his party that he is prepared to pour more money into frontline services including health and education, if he feels it is required to turn them around.