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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Peter Walker Political correspondent

Gordon Brown warns of Tories ‘testing the water’ for two-tier healthcare

Former Labour prime minister, Gordon Brown
Former Labour prime minister Gordon Brown says the UK’s focus should be on social determinants of ill health rather than the ideology bound up with privately financed healthcare. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/The Guardian

Ideas such as Sajid Javid’s suggestion that patients should be charged for visiting GPs or hospital emergency departments show the Conservatives are “testing the water for a different kind of NHS”, Gordon Brown has said.

Writing in the Guardian, the former Labour prime minister says payment for services will end up with people missing early diagnoses and undermine the entire basis of the NHS.

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