DAVID CAMERON vowed yesterday to protect and improve an NHS free to all users after witnessing at first hand the treatment of his disabled son Ivan.

The Tory leader promised to keep the NHS funded by the taxpayer and branded one of Margaret Thatcher’s key health policies “flawed” as he tried to steer his party to the centre ground.

Mr Cameron also attacked W H Smith for promoting cut-price chocolate as he relaunched Tory health policy yesterday.

In a passionate speech, Mr Cameron said that his son’s illness meant that he had seen a lot of the NHS “from the inside”. Ivan, 3, suffers from cerebral palsy and epilepsy.

“In the last three years I’ve probably spent more time in NHS hospitals than any politician apart from the few doctors in the House of Commons,” he said in a speech at the King’s Fund health think-tank.

“I’ve spent the night in A&E departments and slept at my child’s bedside. I’ve got to know the people who dedicate their lives to helping others.

“The fact that we have in this country a health service that takes care of everyone, whatever their needs, whatever their background, is one of the greatest gifts we enjoy as British citizens. We should never forget it, and we should never take it for granted.”

While pledging to champion public health to tackle obesity, he also vowed to put pressure on retailers to prioritise healthy foods.

“I want to see more hard-hitting public health campaigns,” Mr Cameron said. “But government can’t do it on its own. Business, too, has a vital role.

“Try to buy a newspaper at the train station and, as you queue to pay, you are surrounded by cut-price offers for giant chocolate bars. The checkout staff have all been trained to push this product, whatever the customer is actually trying to buy.

“As Britain faces an obesity crisis, why does W H Smith promote half-price Chocolate Oranges at its checkouts instead of real oranges?” Mr Cameron added that he would not force shops to promote healthy food but wanted them to learn that “good health is good business”. W H Smith said that it did not plan to change its approach. A spokeswoman said that customers at stations did not want oranges because they were too difficult to eat on crowded trains. The Chocolate Orange special offer was one of its most successful promotions.

Mr Cameron echoed plans in the Conservative manifesto for a series of public campaigns on health, inspired by the Aids awareness drive in the 1980s.

But he sought to reposition his party by dismissing Mrs Thatcher’s tax breaks for private health insurance and “Barbara Castle’s attempt to abolish pay beds”. Likewise, he dumped last year’s Tory policy of using NHS funds to subsidise those who pay for private treatment.

In phrases reminiscent of an old Labour minister, he praised NHS workers and declared that the NHS embodied the idea that “the wealthy and the healthy have an enduring duty to protect the poorer and vulnerable from life’s risks”. He ruled out a social insurance system, such as Germany’s, where individuals take out compulsory medical policies.

“I will never go down that route,” he said. “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.”

This countered one of the most damaging Labour claims at the election, that the Tories planned to take more than £1 billion out of the system to subsidise those who can afford to pay. Mr Cameron admitted that his plans for the NHS, including wider access to expensive drugs, would not “come on the cheap”. But reform and better public health could offset some of that.

He added: “In every area where Labour are moving in our direction we think they could and should go further.”

Mr Cameron will launch his Improving Public Services Group today to review health, housing and education policies, chaired by Stephen Dorrell, MP, and Baroness Perry of Southwark.

They have invited Maria Hutchings, the mother of an autistic child who berated Tony Blair about special needs schooling during the election.Tory insiders said that the group would seek policy suggestions from public service users and workers including unions.

Patricia Hewitt, the Health Secretary, said that the Tories were in headlong retreat because patients’ passports were central to the manifesto that Mr Cameron drew up. “David Cameron has had to abandon a policy that he, himself, put forward six months ago,” she said.

Steve Webb, the Liberal Democrat spokesman, said: “People will not easily forget the years of damage the Conservatives inflicted on the NHS and will be hard-pressed to believe that the Tories have changed more than just their presentation.”

SWEET TRUTHS

CHOCOLATE ORANGE
(£1.98)
per 100g

Calories: 530
Fat: 29.5g
Protein: 7.4g
Carbohydrate: 58.0g
Fibre: 2.1g

FRESH ORANGE
(approx. 15p)
per 100g

Calories: 37
Fat: 0.1g
Protein: 1.1g
Carbohydrate: 8.5g
Fibre: 1.7g

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