Cameron reverses NHS policy

The Conservative leader, David Cameron, today signalled a long-term shift in Tory thinking on the NHS, ruling out US-style health insurance schemes and pledging the service would remain "free at the point of need".

In a wide-ranging speech on health, Mr Cameron also promised more large-scale public health information campaigns along the lines of the HIV posters commissioned under the Tories in the 1980s.

And in an outspoken attack on WHSmith, he criticised the retailer for promoting chocolate bars to customers, despite rising obesity levels in the UK.

Mr Cameron, who drafted the May 2005 election manifesto promising to pay half the costs of operations for patients who go private, formally repudiated that policy today, having signalled during his leadership bid he was unhappy with it.

In a unequivocal repositioning of Tory thinking on health, he criticised by name both Margaret Thatcher's and Michael Howard's policy.

He told an audience in London: "The right have spent too much time trying to get people out of the NHS and into private sector.

"Margaret Thatcher's support for giving tax relief on private medical insurance, and our patients passport policy at the last election, were examples of [this]."

Mr Cameron declared: "The NHS is not something charitable or demeaning - so we should not use taxpayers' money to encourage the better-off to opt out."

But in a passage that may attract the most attention, he signalled out for criticism WHSmith for promoting chocolate to customers at its tills.

Speaking of the need for new public information campaigns to tackle "preventable ill health" such as obesity, Mr Cameron said some marketing techniques were now "irresponsible".

He said: "Try and buy a newspaper at the train station and, as you queue to pay, you're surrounded by cut-price offers for giant chocolate bars.

"The check-out staff have all been trained to push this product, whatever the customer is actually trying to buy. Why?

"As Britain faces an obesity crisis, why does WHSmith promote half-price chocolate oranges at its checkouts instead of real oranges?"

A spokeswoman for WH Smith said: "We rotate our promotions - one week it might be chocolate, another it might be water. We aim to offer a wide range, so customers have a choice. The products [Mr Cameron's] talking about are included in our impulse snacking range and other options such as fruit, cereal and dried nuts are available."

Mr Cameron praised the famous "Tombstone" HIV awareness campaign launched under the Tories, saying it hit the screens during his first year at university, and "everyone was talking about it".

Since the campaign ended in the mid-1990s, infection rates had "soared" he claimed, saying they were up 168% since 1997.

The Tory leader also announced a new policy group, to be launched tomorrow, on public service improvement.

Highlighting rising obesity, diabetes, syphilis and Chlamydia levels as challenges facing the NHS, he promised to go further than Labour in giving foundation hospitals freedom from central control.

He said: "In every area where Labour are moving in our direction we think they could and should go further.

The government had not gone far enough in giving a wide range of health providers the right to supply services to the NHS. Foundation hospitals were not truly autonomous and GPs were still not in the driving seat, the Tory leader said.

A Conservative government would give more powers to GPs and create "genuine" foundation hospitals, Mr Cameron said.

But, he stressed: "Under a Conservative government, the NHS will remain free at the point of need and available to everyone, regardless of how much money they have in the bank."

Mr Cameron said Labour and the Tories were united in the belief that the NHS should be a truly national service, "not just a safety net for the poor while the rest go private".

There must no longer be a question mark over the Tories' commitment to the NHS, he added.

"I want us to leave no one in any doubt whatsoever about how we feel about the NHS today," he said.

"We believe in it. We want to improve it. We want to improve it for everyone in this country."

Pointing out that he backed increased spending on health up to 2008, as proposed by the chancellor to bring UK levels up to the EU average, he also said that UK "health outcomes" on measures such as lung cancer still lagged way behind countries such as Germany, France and Denmark.

But Steve Webb, the Liberal Democrat's health spokesman, criticised the speech as nothing more than "headline-grabbing words that lack detail and deliver mixed messages."

Mr Cameron's speech comes as the health secretary, Patricia Hewitt, was set to visit an NHS treatment centre in Gillingham, Kent, where she is expected to highlight progress made towards cutting hospital waiting times to a maximum of six months.

The government set a target that by the end of last year no patient in England should be waiting longer than six months for elective surgery.

Figures for the end of November showed that 12,300 patients were still waiting over six months, although on Friday health minister Lord Warner said they expected December's figures to show the end-of-year target had been met.

The department of health has said that treatment centres have helped speed up the treatment of patients and cut waiting lists.

Dave Prentis, general secretary of the giant Unison union, dismissed Mr Cameron's words as "all spin and no substance".

"Margaret Thatcher, the baroness of spin, conned the electorate by claiming the NHS would be safe in her hands but she left it on its knees," he said.

"Cameron will be no different, despite his protestations."