Health screening plans unveiled

Patients in England will be offered screening for
early signs of heart disease, stroke and kidney disease, Prime Minister
Gordon Brown has said.

He said he wanted a more "personalised" NHS with a bigger focus on prevention.

Doctors' representatives accused the PM of "inconsistency" because of recent cuts to funding for such conditions.

The plan comes as Mr Brown seeks to regain the political
initiative and counter David Cameron's bid to claim the Tories are the
party of the NHS.

In a speech in London Mr Brown outlined plans for more
diagnostic tests in GP surgeries, such as blood tests,
electro-cardiograms and ultrasounds to cut waiting times.

Mr Brown said: "There are 200,000 deaths a year from heart and stroke disease.

"Many of them, indeed probably most of them, avoidable if we did the right things."

He said screening for those was "only the start" with
extended screening for breast cancer for women, preventative vaccines
against cervical cancer and "far more" being done in relation to
aneurysms.

"The whole nature of this is that the health service has
really got to change in its next 60 years from being the curative
service - where it's done so much good - to being also a preventative
service and one that's not simply a uniform service, but personal to
people's needs," said Mr Brown.

"So you get to see the doctor you want at the time you
want and the hospital you want, but also a health service organised
around your needs and at the same time, of course, the preventative
work."

Take up

Initially the tests will be available to the most
"vulnerable", and money has been set aside to pay for the procedures in
the health budget for 2008-11, said Mr Brown.

He said the government planned to use advertising to "persuade people" to take the tests.

In his speech, Mr Brown said: "The next stage is
offering men over 65 a simple ultrasound test to detect early abdominal
aortic aneurysm... the weakening of the main artery from heart to
abdomen which kills over 3,000 men a year - and this will eventually
save more than 1,600 lives each year."

He said Health Secretary Alan Johnson would set up plans
to introduce a series of tests to identify vulnerability to heart and
circulation problems.

Vascular screening, to be introduced this year or early
in 2009, would include a series of blood, fat and sugar tests in GP
surgeries.

Reform

The prime minister said "renewal" of the NHS would be
the government's highest priority, adding that the aim was "deeper and
wider reform" to create an NHS "that is here for all of us but personal
to each of us".

And he said patients could be given taxpayers' money to
choose their own health care, by committing himself to the principle of
"personal health budgets".

Government officials said it was initially only likely
to cover patients suffering from long-term conditions - to allow them
to choose the right treatment for them.

Dr Richard Vautrey, deputy chairman of the GPs committee
at the British Medical Association, said: "What I do find extraordinary
is just two or three weeks ago the prime minister insisted that funding
be taken away from the treatment of patients with heart failure,
hardening of the arteries and kidney disease - the very conditions that
he's now proposing to screen for."

And for the Conservatives, shadow health secretary Andrew Lansley accused Mr Brown of "chasing headlines".

"There is no proper timetable for delivery; we don't
know where the money's coming from but we do know that Brown has raided
public health budgets," he said.

Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg said evidence was
needed that "this is more than just another expensive political gimmick
from this government".

"Gordon Brown is ducking the fundamental issue of
overall reform of the health service. No-one can argue against a
greater focus on prevention but this smacks of tinkering," he said.

Mr Brown's decision to make his first big speech of the
year on health follows Conservative leader David Cameron's speech last
week in which he set out proposals which he hoped would lead to the
Tories becoming the party of the NHS.