Brown unveils constitution for Britain’s health service

BRITISH Prime Minister Gordon Brown yesterday signalled his intention to press ahead with a constitution for the National Health Service (NHS) in its 60th year.

The constitution — first floated under Tony Blair — will set out for the first time the rights and responsibilities linked to entitlement to NHS care, said the Prime Minister.

In a new year message to NHS staff, he said it would form part of a package of “reform and change” which will secure the future of Britain’s tax-funded state healthcare service for another 60 years.

It now looks very likely to form a centrepiece of the review of the NHS currently being carried out by eminent surgeon and health minister Lord Darzi, due to report later this year.

Making clear that he will not abandon the programme of health service reform, Mr Brown said that 2008 will see Health Secretary Alan Johnson set out a programme of change to deliver “far greater control and choice” for NHS patients over their own healthcare.

But Mr Brown also left no doubt over his firm commitment to the NHS, which he said was “as vital for our next 60 years as it was for our last”.

And he stressed his intention to consult with staff over planned changes designed to deliver personalised treatment and to increase the emphasis on the prevention of illness.

In a message released by 10 Downing Street, in which he paid tribute to the efforts of NHS staff, he said: “Over the course of the next year the Department of Health will be setting out how the NHS needs to continue to reform to meet the new challenges of 21st century healthcare and 21st century lives. Reform and change which we will work with you to achieve to create a better NHS... and we will also examine how all these changes can be enshrined in a new constitution of the NHS, setting out for the first time the rights and responsibilities associated with an entitlement to NHS care.

“I believe these are steps vital to securing the health of the NHS for the next 60 years.”