Andy Burnham joins critics of PM's decision to invite only royal medical colleges and health practitioners who back reform plans
David Cameron was accused of "playing a dangerous game of divide and rule" by only inviting royal medical colleges and health practitioners that he believes will back his NHS reorganisation to a special summit at Downing Street on Monday.
Andy Burnham, the shadow health secretary, criticised the decision to exclude health bodies believed to include the British Medical Association and the Royal College of General Practitioners from the summit, even though the transfer of greater powers to doctors is a centrepiece of the changes.
Burnham said doctors had "strong and sincerely held views" on the government's plans for the NHS and didn't deserve to have the door to the summit "shut in their faces".
But the Tory health minister Simon Burns insisted it was not "odd at all" not to invite them because the meeting was part of "an ongoing dialogue".
He said that the summit was for organisations who were "constructively engaged in implementing the modernisation".
He told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme: "I don't think it's odd at all because this is part of an ongoing dialogue. We have had hundreds of meetings. There have been thousands of people involved in talking and looking into ways of improving and engaging on the health bill."
He said the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) and the Royal College of GPs were not being constructive "because what they have said – and it's been rather contradictory – is that they oppose the bill and think it should be dropped."
David Cameron is facing widening opposition to the reorganisation from across the health service, sections of the Liberal Democrats, crossbench peers and fellow Conservative cabinet members, but believes he has no alternative but to plough on with the health bill and show there is a viable support base for the changes within the health service.
Burns confirmed there was no intention to drop controversial aspects of the health and social care bill, such as those dealing with competition, because they were part and parcel of the modernisation programme.
He said: "The NHS has got to evolve to meet its challenges and the whole bill is a package that interacts with each other within that legislation to move forward that process to help the NHS meet its challenges."
He warned that "in some ways this has become a political football".
"The NHS is too important and too precious to be turned into a political football for party gain," he said.
But Burnham told BBC Radio 5 Live that the NHS would become a huge problem for the government if the bill was pushed through. "You say that its all political, but to be honest, it isn't, because if we were looking purely at our narrow party political interest, it probably makes sense for us if the prime minister ploughs on because I think the NHS will become a bigger and bigger problem. Even that said we would rather he dropped the bill because the NHS matters more to the Labour party than anything else, and what's happening now is severely damaging to it."
Doctors had "strong and sincerely held views" on the government's plans for the NHS and didn't deserve to have the door "shut in their faces", the shadow minister added.
"The NHS matters too much to too many people for Mr Cameron to play what is a dangerous game of divide and rule."
He highlighted aspects of the bill Labour could accept, such as doctor-led commissioning, but he said this could be introduced through existing NHS structures. "It doesn't need the biggest ever reorganisation of the National Health Service just at the time it's facing its biggest financial challenge. That's what's so dangerous about what the government is doing."
A poll for the trade union Unite, conducted by YouGov, suggests six times as many people trust health professionals over the prime minister and the health secretary on the NHS reorganisation than the opposite. The survey also shows 68% of those polled want the government to publish its own risk register on the changes.
Peter Carter, the RCN general secretary, expressed dismay at the decision not to involve organisations representing the vast majority of NHS staff and who have "honestly held, sincere concerns" about the bill.
Carter told Today: "We are committed to work with the government even though we have huge reservations about this bill, and we really don't think it's a very sensible way forward to think you can have a meeting – it's been called an emergency summit – without involving many of the key organisations that are intrinsic to ensuring that the NHS is successful."
Downing Street refused to discuss the precise guest list of the meeting, except to acknowledge that it was built round supporters of the reorganisation, which still needs to complete the report stages in the Lords.
Cameron's aides stressed that the meeting was purely about how to implement the health bill, and was not a discussion about potential concessions.
Cameron will tell the summit that patients are already beginning to see the fruits of greater GP influence in areas where clinical commissioning groups have been set up.
He will point to evidence that emergency hospital admissions have fallen year-on-year for the first time, as GPs have been made more central to shaping care for patients and the NHS has moved away from Labour's "targets" culture to the coalition's emphasis on "outcomes".
Department of Health figures show a 0.5% decline in emergency hospital admissions in 2011, compared with a 36% increase between 2001 and 2010.
The summit coincides with the publication of a study by the London School of Economics that shows forcing NHS hospitals to compete with one another saves money and improves efficiency, but finds that letting them compete with the private sector does not produce the same positive effects, according to the Financial Times.