Gordon Brown plans new NHS ‘constitution’

With these rights will come the responsibility to lead a healthy lifestyle and there are concerns among patient groups that this could mean the refusal of treatment. Around one in ten hospitals already refuse to carry out joint replacements for obese patients or orthopaedic surgery on smokers. The British Medical Association (BMA) described Gordon Brown’s plans to focus on prevention as “a positive move”, but was concerned his proposals to introduce a national health screening programme had “not been properly thought through”.

Dr Laurence Buckman, chairman of the BMA’s GPs Committee said: “Patients will clearly benefit from earlier detection of disease and GPs have been participating in national programmes to screen patients for illnesses such as diabetes and kidney disease for many years. However, there is currently a shortage of staff to carry out diagnostic scans, so an expanded screening programme would also require a significant expansion of both personnel and scanning equipment.

“The implications for hospitals are also likely to be considerable should patients require further treatment and we hope the Government has planned for the inevitable increase in hospital and laboratory services. Ironically when GPs offered to provide new screening services recently, the Government turned them down and threatened to withdraw the funding. In particular, they said they did not want to increase the support given to the management of patients with kidney disease. They are clearly incapable of joining the dots when it comes to health policy.”