Government accused of allowing hospitals to allocate half their beds and appointments to private patients
Labour is to step up its campaign to block the government health reforms, accusing the government of allowing NHS hospitals to devote half their beds, appointments and car park spaces to the treatment of private patients.
The move represents a hardening of Labour's opposition to what it regards as the privatisation of the NHS.
Shadow ministers admit privately that some Labour opposition has been hobbled by the coalition claim that they are completing Blairite reforms.
Labour released a clutch of emails from Liberal Democrat activists complaining that the party leadership was going beyond the mandate given by the party at the Liberal Democrat spring party conference in Sheffield in March. .
The health and social care bill has yet to receive its report stage in the House of Lords and Labour is still hoping Liberal Democrat peers can be persuaded to rebel. So far, such Liberal Democrat rebellions on the health and welfare bills have been small.
Speaking ahead of a Commons debate on Monday, Andy Burnham, the shadow health secretary, said: "David Cameron's plan opens the door to an explosion of private work in NHS facilities, meaning longer waits for NHS patients and a two-tier health service in England."
Burnham is trying to capitalise on the revelation that a government amendment to the health bill will allow an expansion of private work carried out in NHS hospitals by lifting the current cap from about 2% to 49%.
Some see the cap as a reassurance but some Liberal Democrat health activists have been angered by the revelation.
One Lib Dem councillor launched an e-petition last month against the cap plans but it was pulled within a few hours of going online, with claims it had become a political football used by Labour.
But leaked emails on the Liberal Democrat internal noticeboard show disquiet.
Andrew Bridgewater asked: "Am I right in thinking that we did not agree the 49% maximum for private health business limit for hospital foundation trusts in the March amended motion? If so what are our parliamentarians going to do about it? We should surely negotiate it out with the threat of voting it down if we are unsuccessful."
The correspondence led Charles West, one of the movers of the motion that started the opposition to the health bill at the Sheffield conference, to write: "You are quite right to say that we, the Lib Dem membership, have at no stage agreed that the cap on private income for NHS hospitals should rise to 49%."
He claimed Lib Dem members had not been given a chance to express a view on the bill: "The March debate was on a motion praising the NHS white paper, and there were great constraints on what we could include by way of amendment. I am therefore pretty sick of senior members of our party saying 'Oh everything is all right because we have delivered or nearly delivered on some/many/most of the clauses included in that amendment'.
"The health and social care bill had proposed removing completely the private patient cap but attempts were made to reassure us that foundation trusts would not be able to ignore the NHS responsibilities because their defined purpose was predominantly to provide NHS services. It seems that predominantly is now to be defined as 51%. So if only 49% of my diet is meat, can I claim that I am predominantly vegetarian?"
Burnham said: "This 49% plan is the starkest sign yet of how the character of our NHS will change if [Andrew] Lansley's bill gets through. In time, England's hospitals could become like US hospitals, putting pursuit of profits before patient care."
He rejected reassurances from the government, saying: "We have learnt from bitter experience not to trust the prime minister's NHS pledges. Just two months after promising that there'd be no privatisation of the health service, his government outrageously orders the privatisation of three local services.
"Time is running out for the NHS and we urgently need to alert people to what is happening. From here on, Labour will call this bill as it is – a privatisation plan for the NHS."