Ministers defeated on NHS reforms

The Labour Party conference has backed a motion against "outsourcing", "job cuts" and "market-based" reforms in the NHS.

The motion accused the government of going back on agreed party policy that stressed "collaboration, not competition" and argued that reforms were damaging, not improving, the health service.

"The major cause of the current crisis is a direct consequence of the move to a competitive, market-based system, the continued use of PFI and payment-by-results," it said.

The vote came after health secretary Patricia Hewitt told activists that reforms were necessary to safeguard the future of the NHS as publicly funded and free at the point of use.

"We said in our manifesto that the principles in our NHS reforms was putting the patient first," she said.

"It would be just as wrong to say no private involvement in the NHS as it would be to say only private involvement in the NHS," the minister added, warning that failure to reform the health service would mean the Conservatives would do so more regressively.

But earlier Unison general secretary Dave Prentis had slammed the "market madness" of the reform programme.

He said Labour's opposition to Conservative health reforms in the 1990s had helped the party win election, but that the government was now going back to the "divisive markets and competition rejected by voters in 1997".

And he argued that job cuts had left "people mystified by Hewitt's claim that this is 'the best year ever for the NHS'".

"Yes this is about patients, they always come first," he told delegates. "But this is also about our party.

"Set that clear red line between us and the Tories. This is their agenda, not ours."

The conference also reacted angrily to Prentis's speech being cut off after he ran out of his allotted time.

Party treasurer Jack Dromey said he had been shown an "outrageous discourtesy" by chairman Gary Titley, the Labour leader in the European parliament.

However Titley insisted that Prentis had been warned.