Revamp to end NHS postcode lottery

Patients will get quicker access to life-saving drugs in a drive to end the NHS postcode lottery under sweeping changes announced by the Government today.

On its 60th anniversary, Prime Minister Gordon Brown pledged the reforms would provide a "once-in-a-generation opportunity" to make the national health service one of the best in the world. He hailed health minister and surgeon Lord Darzi's review of the service as a "bold vision". Details of the plans were being unveiled in Parliament this afternoon.

Health Secretary Alan Johsnon and Lord Darzi are spearheading the shake-up.

It includes an "NHS constitution" setting out the rights and responsibilities of patients and staff.

And it guarantees access to drugs and treatment approved by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) regardless of expense and where a patient lives.

Personal budgets for patients with long-term conditions feature, and hospitals are told to publish the death rates for dozens of conditions, which could include the performance rates of individual surgeons.

Controversial plans to give nurses greater powers to set up there own surgeries and clinics also form a part of the bold changes.

They will be encouraged to 'go-it-alone' and establish non-profit, independent organisations to run the practices by being allowed to opt out of the NHS without losing their pension rights.

Lord Darzi said: "Nurse-run services have enormous potential to cut bureaucracy in primary care and focus care more directly on the needs of patients."

In his foreword to the published report, Mr Brown said: "We need a more personalised NHS, responsive to each of us as individuals, focused on prevention, better equipped to keep us healthy and capable of giving us real control and real choices over our care.

"Lord Darzi's report is a tremendous opportunity to build an NHS which provides truly world class services for all. It is a bold vision for an NHS, which is among the best healthcare systems in the world," he added.