04 February 2005
Patient choice over where and when they are treated will safeguard the future of the NHS, Health Secretary John Reid claimed this week.
Launching Limits of the market, constraints of the state: the public good and the NHS, an essay he has written for the Social Market Foundation, Reid insisted a more consumer-oriented approach was needed to secure the public's continuing support for state-funded health care. An increasingly educated and affluent society demanded greater choice and expected more from the NHS than the 'one size fits all' model of the past.
The health service could steer a third way between traditional values and a free market, taking the best elements from the two, he said.
Patients would continue to choose NHS hospitals for most acute care, but Reid pledged greater use of the independent sector to expand capacity quickly and stimulate quality improvements.
The government is committed to giving the private sector 15% of state-funded health care in England.
'Markets are one of the most fruitful sources of human innovation. I've heard the argument put that if you learn from the market, you are inevitably engulfed by its values. I reject this view of the fragility of the founding NHS values,' he said.
'We can learn from market-based systems without being engulfed by them. We can retain our values while improving the manner in which they are translated into contemporary relevance.
'To those who have misgivings, I say I will protect the founding principles of the NHS of equal access to health care provided free at the point of need.'
PFfeb2005
