|
Latest News
|
|
|
|
1/25/2012
|
|
|
|
|
|
Labour leader tells Cameron he is "out of touch" with health reforms
|
 |
|
Prime Minister David Cameron has been accused of being “out of touch” by Ed Miliband.
|
The Labour leader Ed Miliband has launched a scathing parliamentary attack on David Cameron, insisting that the Prime Minister is “out of touch” with what is required to improve the health service, as the debate on the NHS reforms intensifies.
A heated Prime Minister's Questions saw the two leaders clash over Cameron's plans to hand the majority of the NHS budget to GPs and introduce competition from the private and voluntary sectors to service commissioning.
The government's proposals, under the health and social care bill which is making its way through the House of Lords, have been vehemently opposed by doctors and nurses but Cameron and the Health Secretary Andrew Lansley have stuck doggedly to the bill, even though segments of it have been watered down.
Miliband's criticism of Cameron was fierce, the Labour leader telling the Prime Minister his arrogance threatened to ruin the NHS. “This is a bill nobody wants. It's opposed by the doctors, the nurses and the patients,” Miliband said. “Put aside your pride and arrogance and drop this... unwanted bill.”
Cameron responded by insisting his plans were supported by “thousands of GPs across the country,” and he went on to suggest that £7billion of the government's target of £20billion in efficiency savings has already been found.
“If we listened to him we'd be cutting the spending in the NHS, scrapping reforms of the NHS and the NHS would be getting worse not better,” Cameron said. “If you introduce choice, if you introduce transparency, if you introduce competition, if you say the private and voluntary sectors should play a greater role, of course you face a challenge. But that is what doing the right thing is sometimes all about.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
