David Cameron today attempted to persuade voters that the National Health Service would be safe in his hands by promising that care would remain free to everyone under a Tory government.

The new Conservative leader jettisoned his party's flagship health policy, which had been in place until the last election, of making the NHS subsidise patients to seek private care.

Mr Cameron said that he would never go down the route of making health care available based on how much patients had paid towards medical insurance, as in America and other European countries.

Instead, he said he wanted to transform the NHS into a more efficient, effective and patient-centred service.

Speaking at the Kings Fund health group in London, Mr Cameron said there must no longer be a question mark over the Tories’ commitment to the NHS. "We believe in it. We want to improve it. We want to improve it for everyone in this country.

"Under a Conservative government, the NHS will remain free at the point of need and available to everyone, regardless of how much money they have in the bank."

Mr Cameron said Labour and the Tories were united in the belief that the NHS should be a truly national service, but said that Labour health reforms did not go far enough.

A wider range of suppliers could be providing health care through the NHS, he said. Foundation hospitals were not truly autonomous, and GPs were still not in the driving seat.

"In every area where Labour are moving in our direction we think they could and should go further," he said. "We will support the Government where it does the right thing. And we will offer constructive criticism when it doesn’t.

"We’re proud of the NHS and we’re optimistic about its future. Instead of helping a few to leave the NHS and go private, we want the private sector to come and help improve the NHS for everyone.""

A Conservative government would give more powers to GPs and create "genuine" foundation hospitals, Mr Cameron said.

He accused the Government of neglecting preventative care in its public health policy, stopping people becoming ill in the first place rather than just treating them when they did.

He confirmed that the Conservatives are to scrap their flagship policy of "patient passports", which would have offered state-funded subsidies to patients who go private. It was a central plank of the general election manifesto he wrote.

Forced onto the defensive in a question and answer session after his speech, he insisted that the passport "was only one part" of a wider policy of encouraging private sector provision within the NHS.

Asked why he had changed his mind, Mr Cameron said that was because he had reflected on the policy in the wake of the Tories’ election defeat.

He also admitted that his plans for the NHS were expensive, saying: "Costs in the health service continually go up. New treatments come on and new drugs come on. There is a very great cost pressure. Also if you want to expand the health service these things do not come on the cheap."

However, a programme of reforms and better public health could help mitigate that, he told the invited audience of healthcare professionals.

Patricia Hewitt, the Health Secretary, said later that Mr Cameron's speech showed that the Tories were in "headlong retreat" over health policy. The minister said that the Tory plans for a patient passport scheme had been "wrong" and insisted Labour was "winning the argument" on how to improve the NHS.

"They are in headlong retreat. David Cameron has had to abandon a policy that he himself put forward six months ago," said Ms Hewitt today.

"I think the question that David Cameron has not answered is how on earth he can say that he is supporting the NHS when the Tories voted against increases in national insurance. We are making the improvements to the NHS and will go on making those improvements but the Conservatives all the way along have opposed the investment."

Dave Prentis, general secretary of the giant Unison union, dismissed Mr Cameron’s words as "all spin and no substance".

"Margaret Thatcher, the baroness of spin, conned the electorate by claiming the NHS would be safe in her hands but she left it on its knees," he said. "Cameron will be no different, despite his protestations."

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