The NHS belongs to all of us. It is there to improve our health, help us to keep well, get better when we are ill, and when we cannot fully recover, stay as well as we can.

For 60 years the NHS has been the pride of Britain. A sign to the world that we are a society that wants to care for each of its members at the time when they are least able to care for themselves. It’s fitting, therefore, that the Labour Party, which created the NHS and which over the last ten years has pumped back into it the investment it needs to deliver world class health care, has announced that we will create for the NHS, and for all the citizens of Britain that use it, a new constitution.

The Government has produced a draft constitution and it can be found online at www.dh.gov.uk/en/Consultations. If you don’t have access to the Internet just call my office on 01843 852696 and we will send you a leaflet giving you more information about what is in it. A consultation on the draft will run until October 17th and after listening to the consultation its content will be finalised.

For patients, the draft includes the right to the drugs you need, the right to a clear explanation of your treatment and its options, your right to make choices about your care and the right to be consulted about the way local services are developed. For staff it will include a commitment to ensure they have rewarding and worthwhile jobs and to be supported in doing those jobs.

But the draft constitution will include one other vital commitment that I very much hope will be included in the final version. It will include a commitment to providing a comprehensive service, available to everyone without discrimination and based on clinical need not ability to pay. It has for 60 years been the core principle of the NHS.

Why is that important? Because it is a principle that has not always been supported by all political parties. There are politicians on the right who openly discuss moving away from this principle and introducing charging. And as we saw up to 1997, and in Conservative Party manifestos at each general election since then, there are many politicians who are far from committed to funding a comprehensive service.