Labour NHS Act confusion
The nature of Labour's position on the Coalition's health reforms has been thrown into confusion after the shadow health secretary appeared to contradict Ed Miliband hours after a policy announcement.
Mr Miliband told a Q&A audience in Manchester that the next Labour government would not seek to return the NHS's structure to its pre-Coalition state, but Andy Burnham said he wanted to repeal the Health and Social Care Act.
"I think what would be not sensible is for us to come along and say, ‘well, Andrew Lansley, now Jeremy Hunt, they’re changing all the arrangements, have these new clinical commissioning groups and so on, and we’re just going to reverse it all back and spend another £3bn on another top-down bureaucratic organisation’," Mr Miliband told the audience.
But the shadow health secretary tweeted later that he would completely repeal the Health and Social Care Act:
"I'll repeal the Bill. Full stop," he said, appearing to contradict his party leader.
Mr Miliband had said he and Mr Burnham were looking for a "new legal basis" on the NHS.