Britons 'expect more' now of NHS

Mr Blair is backing a recruitment campaign

The UK's healthcare system needs to be redesigned to match the ever increasing expectations in today's consumer culture, says Tony Blair.

In a speech to health chief executives in London, the prime minister said patients, parents and passengers now expected their public services to be tailored to their individual demands.

Patients and staff increasingly see Tony Blair and his ministers, with their interference and constant structural change, as the real 'wreckers'

Evan Harris

Mr Blair threw his weight behind a new recruitment drive for the NHS but said 20,000 extra midwives and nurses had already been signed up.

That claim has not impressed the Conservatives, who accuse the government of fiddling the figures and offering only a "bunch of platitudes".

Core principles

In his speech at the conference of NHS Trust and Primary Care Trust chief executives, Mr Blair again stressed the need for extra investment to go hand-in-hand with reform in the health service.

He outlined four key principles in his healthcare reform programme:

National standards of accountability and inspection.

Devolution of more powers to front line staff.

More flexibility in the way NHS staff are employed, including removing out-dated demarcations between doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals.

Alternatives and choice for the "consumer" where the system failed.

Mr Blair said people had greeted the advent of universal public services with relief but now they expected much higher standards.

"We need to try to redesign the system to match the expectations that people have and the far more individual way they want their treatment, their schooling, their pensions, their transport to be done for them," he said.

'Only platitudes'

The prime minister said it was the start of a process of renewing public services so they remained collectively financed but were tailored to individual needs.

Shadow health secretary Liam Fox said Mr Blair's message was nothing new.

"It was a bunch of platitudes - the prime minister does not seem to understand he's actually been in office in charge of the NHS for five years now," Dr Fox told BBC News.

"He cannot keep on blaming everybody else for the problems the NHS is facing."

Dr Fox said it was not clear whether the extra nurses and midwives mentioned by Mr Blair were full or part time, nor how they compared with the number of nurses leaving the profession.

Accusing the government of "fiddling the figures", the Tory spokesman said Labour had failed to deliver on its promise of a world class health service.

Liberal Democrat spokesman Evan Harris said that Labour had failed to provide "meaningful reform" for the NHS.

The government is stressing the need to attract more "nurse returners" - nurses who have left their profession - back into NHS jobs.

'Excessive interference'

According to government figures, approximately 10,000 nurses returned between 1999 and 2001 - a number the government wants to improve on.

Mr Blair said the government had to work on reform in partnership with NHS staff because money alone would not bring the improvements demanded by the public.

Earlier, Dr Harris said: "Tony Blair has never offered meaningful reform to the health service, only perpetual change, excessive interference and continuing structural fiddling, which attempts to substitute activity for action.

"The problem is that patients and staff increasingly see Tony Blair and his ministers, with their interference and constant structural change, as the real 'wreckers'."