... paid for, free at the point of delivery, by the NHS, which is its principle duty. As the health secretary at the time, Alan Milburn, said in July 2001: "This is not privatisation - the taking of services out of the NHS. It is bringing into the NHS private sector help in those areas where it has a track record and where there are benefits for patients. The private sector will help but the NHS is - and will remain - Britain's dominant health care provider." For years in opposition it was standard Labour rhetoric to claim the Conservatives were "privatising" the NHS by contracting out support services - such as cleaning - to the private sector, or proposing to build hospitals under the private finance initiative. Unlike the Tories, Labour used to believe that public services should be provided as far as possible by the public sector as ...

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