Tories must become 'party of the NHS'

David Cameron has called on the Conservatives to replace Labour as "the party of the NHS".

The Tory leader promised to make healthcare a key battleground with the government in 2008 - the 60th anniversary of the NHS.

He set out plans to fine hospitals for every patient who catches a superbug, while promising patients more choice.

Speaking during a visit to Manchester on Wednesday, he said: "The best way to enhance the power of patients is through the mechanism of choice.

"Quite simply, the option of gaining or losing patients is the most effective spur to improvement on the part of doctors, hospitals and other care providers.

"So we will give people a choice of GP. We will allow patients to choose, in consultation with their GP, where they get their secondary care.

"And we will ensure that hospitals and clinics and other care providers are paid according to the results they achieve."

He went on: "It should be a basic rule of social policy that you don't pay for what you don't want more of.

"Money should attend success, not failure. So, for instance, I don't think hospitals should be paid - or paid in full - for a treatment which leaves the patient with a hospital-acquired infection like MRSA."

He described the plan as a means of "hard-wiring infection control into the system".

The fines would be set by the health service economic regulator Monitor, and taken from the tariff paid to hospitals for each patient treated.

"Rather than a top-down system of targets which encourages 'throughput' above all else, we propose a bottom-up system which prioritises quality as well as quantity," Cameron said.

"This will make managers concentrate on the effectiveness, not the just the volume of treatment."

He said the Conservatives would scrap all centrally-imposed targets and focus instead on treatment outcomes.

And he also said people needed to take more responsibility for their own health by taking exercise, avoiding drug abuse and eating and drinking in moderation.

"As patients we need to be active, not passive," he said.

"But we must be careful what we mean by that. People pay tax all their life - they rightly expect treatment and service as a result."

Cameron, who is visiting Manchester and Yorkshire during a two-day trip, earlier toured Manchester's Trafford General Hospital - the first to be opened in the new NHS in 1948 by then health secretary, Labour's Aneurin Bevan.

He said: "In this, the NHS's 60th year, the Conservative Party has an historic opportunity - to replace Labour as the party of the NHS.

"That's quite an aspiration - but I believe it is our duty to live up to it."

Health secretary Alan Johnson said legislation already before Parliament would provide the means to fine poor performing hospitals, and that the Tories had "no new ideas".

"But worse than that is the Tory plan to scrap Labour's rigorous targets to reduce hospital-associated infection," he said.

"Under David Cameron the NHS would be encouraged to take its eye off the ball when it comes to fighting infection.

"Again, this shows that underneath the headline-grabbing announcements there is no substance to Conservative policy on the NHS."