We shed blood on our NHS reforms: Table-thumping Cameron lashes out at Cabinet back-stabbers and vows there won't be a …

Prime Minister pledges his '100 per cent' support for Health Secretary
Tory MP Nadine Dorries says No 10 encouraged ministers to 'smear' Lansley Escalation comes after three unnamed Ministers call for Bill to be scrapped

By Simon Walters

Last updated at 11:40 AM on 12th February 2012

Rattled David Cameron has been forced to come out fighting to save his NHS reforms and prevent Health Secretary Andrew Lansley falling victim to a dirty tricks plot by Cabinet Ministers.

In an angry meeting at No?10, he thumped the table as he vowed to press ahead with the changes, saying: ‘We’ve not shed blood on these proposals not to go through with them.’

Last night he stepped up his offensive, reading the riot act to rebel Ministers, pledging his ‘100 per cent’ support for embattled Mr Lansley, and declaring he is ‘absolutely determined’ not to do a U-turn on the health shake-up. 

Coming out fighting: David Cameron, the Prime Minister, left, last night stepped up his offensive as he tries to save his controversial NHS reforms and the career of his Health Secretary, Andrew Lansley, right

But Mr Cameron faced a fierce counter-attack by Tory MP and  ex-nurse Nadine Dorries, who supports the reforms and claims No?10 had encouraged Ministers to ‘smear’ Mr Lansley.

‘Lansley is toast. It is clear that Cameron wants to kill his own NHS Bill – and Andrew Lansley’s career with it,’ she writes in today’s Mail on Sunday.

She says that instead of pillorying Mr Lansley, No?10 should have advised him on how to explain his reforms to patients.

 

Counter-attack: Tory MP Nadine Dorries has laid into Mr Cameron, claiming No 10 had encouraged Ministers to 'smear' Mr Lansley

The escalation in the NHS row came after three unnamed Cabinet Ministers used a Tory website to call for the Bill to be scrapped.

Mr Cameron said yesterday: ‘Andrew Lansley has my 100 per cent support. He is a very strong Health Secretary and is staying  in his job.’

And in a warning shot to Mr Lansley’s Cabinet enemies, a Downing Street spokesman added: ‘The Prime Minister is quite clear – the collective responsibility of the Cabinet means that Mr Lansley has its full support.’

Mr Cameron called the rebel Ministers’ bluff by challenging them to repeat their private criticism of Mr Lansley to him.

The spokesman said: ‘No one has raised this issue with him either before or after these reports appeared.’

In a further sign of his concern, Mr Cameron referred to the way the NHS helped him and wife Samantha cope with their disabled son Ivan, who died in 2009, as proof of his personal faith in the health service.

He said: ‘The reforms are necessary; I am totally committed to the NHS; I and my family have personal experience  of it and I want it to remain free at the point of use.’

He plans to take personal charge of the NHS changes following a loss of confidence in Mr Lansley among voters and Ministers alike.

Mr Cameron will visit a hospital this week in a public display of his commitment to the NHS and plans a series of interviews spelling out why the changes are needed.

Ivan, Mr Cameron's late son: The PM referred to the way the NHS helped him and wife Samantha cope with the disabled son boy, who died in 2009, as proof of his personal faith in the health service

Ministers are increasingly alarmed at the way the NHS Bill, designed to slash bureaucracy and boost efficiency by switching power and money to GPs and patients, has come under attack from Labour, the Lib Dems – and now the Tory Cabinet.

Many Tory MPs think it is too late to save Mr Lansley. Claims that the legislation could be a repeat of the ill-fated Poll Tax that helped bring down Margaret Thatcher have set alarm bells ringing.

Tim Montgomerie, of grassroots website ConservativeHome, said three Cabinet Ministers had urged him to call for the reforms to be dropped – and Mr Lansley sacked.

Opponents? Chancellor George Osborne has publicly supported the reforms, but some MPs say he has privately expressed doubts. Michael Gove, the Education Secretary is also said to be worried about the plan

His statement led to intense speculation as to their identity.

Publicly, Chancellor George Osborne says he supports the  Bill – but some MPs say he has grave private doubts.

Education Secretary Michael Gove, Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith, Northern Ireland Secretary Owen Paterson and Leader of the Commons Sir George Young are also said to be worried about the reform plan.

By NADINE DORRIES

Last updated at 11:40 AM on 12th February 2012

Last week a prominent political journalist wrote that a No?10 aide had said: ‘Lansley should be taken out and shot.’

Let’s get one thing straight: if you work in No?10 and you say something like that to a newspaper, you absolutely know it is going to be reported and you would only say it if you had been told to say it – or you wanted to lose your job.

No?10 aides aren’t known for their professional kamikaze tendencies so it has to be assumed that whoever said it was acting under orders.

'Machiavellian tendencies': Ms Dorries, right, says the order to smear Mr Lansley was 'most likely' given by Chancellor Osborne, left, as part of an orchestrated campaign against the Health Secretary

In my view, those orders are most likely to have been issued by George Osborne, who knocks the Machiavellian tendencies of Gordon Brown into the shadows.

Such a briefing sends a clear message to Ministers: it was code for the Prime Minister’s general direction of travel. It said: ‘Feel free to start smearing Lansley.’

David Cameron’s endorsement of Lansley in the Commons on Wednesday, when he told Ed  Miliband that Lansley’s chance of holding on to his job was ‘safer than yours’, was conspicuously tepid, bearing in mind Miliband’s dismal ratings. There is only one conclusion: Lansley is toast.

The same No?10 aide also mooted the possibility of former Labour Minister Alan Milburn being appointed to the Lords and put in charge of overseeing the NHS reforms. Again, it is my view that this was a carefully calculated, deliberate leak.

There was never a more vexatious piece of legislation than the NHS Bill, which Lansley has been immersed in for seven years.

His reforms run through every vein and artery of the NHS and are exactly the kind of changes a blue-sky-thinking Conservative Government should be implementing. These are reforms, I might add, that Cameron supported, before the Liberal Democrats mutilated the Bill with hundreds of amendments.

It should have been a winner: Unfortunately, Mr Lansley's attention to detail made it almost impossible for him to speak about the reforms in terms people could understand, Ms Dorries says

The NHS reforms were being worked out long before we were in a coalition and the initial Bill was Conservative to its core, as far from a Liberal Democrat top-heavy view of the NHS as you could possibly get.

The irony is that, originally, it wasn’t that difficult to sell. Messages which articulated the fact that GPs became holders of budgets which empowered patients and put them in the driving seat were clear and simple to get over.

All patients needed to be told was that they would be able to sit in front of a GP and ask: ‘You hold the purse strings now, why can’t I have that drug?’

It should have been a winner with the public. Unfortunately, Lansley’s attention to detail made it almost impossible for him to speak about the reforms in terms people could understand.

He is a man of exceptional intelligence but speaks in the jargon of integrated care pathways, learning networks and triggers for intervention.

The reforms are highly complex and No?10 should have helped Lansley to explain them. Instead they have left him to his fate.

Then Nick Clegg’s chippy Lib Dems got their teeth into the Bill.

They have caused so much mischief, you could be forgiven for forgetting we are in a coalition.

They may have only 52 MPs, but they display the arrogance of a party that knows it holds the balance of power – even though they face annihilation at the next General Election. 

Machinations: Mr Cameron, center, accompanied by Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, background left, and Mr Lansley, on a visit to a patient ward at Frimley Park hospital in April last year

It is clear that Cameron wants  to kill his own NHS Bill – and Lansley’s career with it. Now that Downing Street has started to smear one of its own Secretaries of State, confidence in the Bill and Lansley – a dedicated and loyal public servant, whose only crime has been to apply his immense intelligence and Conservative principles with absolute dedication – will collapse.

A new Secretary of State will be appointed to carry the changes through to a natural conclusion. Many have already been put in place. Primary Health Care Trusts have all but gone; GPs have organised themselves into consortiums; hospitals have adapted.

What is left of Lansley’s reforms will be jettisoned. No doubt it will placate Clegg, but at the expense of a better health service.

I fear the malicious briefings will continue and Lansley will be replaced as soon as Cameron and Clegg can agree upon a replacement ready to please the Lib Dems.

Sadly, it merely goes to show just how far Cameron has removed himself from core Conservative principles.

 

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We shed blood on our NHS reforms: Table-thumping Cameron lashes out at Cabinet back-stabbers and vows there won't be a ...