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Labour called for a halt to the "reckless" sell-off of NHS services today as
it revealed figures showing the Government was embarked on "the single biggest
act of privatisation ever seen in the NHS".

Shadow health secretary Andy Burnham produced a dossier at the party's
conference in Manchester detailing contracts for 396 community services -
worth
#250 million - being signed from this week.

More than a quarter (110) were being pushed on health chiefs by new rules
forcing them to select at least three of a sample of eight services to put out
to tender, data obtained by freedom of information requests showed.

Ministers should halt the planned extension of the shake-up to cover another
39
services until a review had been carried out into the effects of the increased
use of private providers on the health service, Mr Burnham said.

Speaking to reporters before making his speech to the conference, Mr Burnham
said he would implement a return to the previous "NHS first" system under
which in-house providers were given the first chance to turn round failing
services.

But while Labour had "let the market in too far" at times in the past, he
conceded that he could not guarantee any part of the service would be immune
under his watch to the possibility of being outsourced if it was failing.

In the dossier - titled Cameron's Great NHS Carve-Up - Labour said responses
from primary care trusts (PCTs) showed many were being "forced to tender
services that were already being delivered to a high quality".

Children's wheelchair services, adult hearing, home-based diagnostic tests and
podiatry are among the services included in the first wave.

Labour said it had also found evidence that at least one hospital group
planned
to double its private income by taking advantage of new freedoms.

It pointed as well to an increase in the number of patient transport services
being contracted out to bus firms as well as preparations for the
privatisation
of commissioning and advocacy services.

"The sheer pace of this is proceeding in a reckless manner," Mr Burnham
said.

"It is a fast-track to fragmentation. This is being really rammed through,
particularly given all the other change that is destabilising the NHS at the
moment, the financial pressure it is facing.

"The NHS is reaching a fork in the road and I believe that a central question
at the next election will be the choice of direction, which path does it take.

"Our choice is integration. Such is the complexity of caring for an ageing
population, my judgment is the future requires a one-system approach to health
and care.

"But the path that we are currently on is a fast-track to fragmentation and
this particular week has seen a step-change in the pace and scale of
privatisation in the NHS.

"It is across the entire system: in NHS community services, NHS hospital
services, in commissioning and even in patient advocacy."

In a swipe at party colleagues who preceded him as health secretary, he said:
"At times we let the market in too far."

But he said he would be "pragmatic", not ideological, about where private
firms could intervene.

"There will be a role for the private sector in any NHS that I run.

"But I have a policy of 'NHS first' because my judgment is that people want a
core public NHS in their community because these are essential, emergency,
important services that everyone needs to rely on.

"That permanent core needs to be there come what may. It can't be here today,
gone tomorrow as a company comes in, comes out, goes bust."

He declined however to identify what would be included in that "permanent
core" or whether Labour would take any steps to guarantee any services would
remain publicly run.

"As part of our policy review I am prepared to consider that question. It is
the things that have to be there day in and day out that people depend on," he
said.

"I am pragmatic on this question rather than ideological. I don't think you
can ever say if there's a failing service, even in the NHS, that you just put
up
with it because it's the NHS.

"If it is letting the public down you have got to open your mind to the fact
that it needs to be changed and improved."

In his speech, Mr Burnham urged Labour activists to "make the next election a
referendum on Cameron's NHS betrayal".

He said he would "repeal Cameron's market and restore the legal basis of a
national, democratically-accountable, collaborative health service".

And he secured a big roar from the hall with a dig at new Health Secretary
Jeremy Hunt.

"It's hard to be a shadow when you're up against the Invisible Man," he
joked.

"A month in the job but not a word about thousands of nursing jobs lost. Not
one word about crude rationing, older people left without essential treatment.

"Not a word about moves in the South West to break national pay."

[Total 04:35]