Labour would ‘immediately halt the Tories’ chaotic’ sustainability and transformation plan (STP) programme if elected, the party has pledged.
Shadow health secretary, Jonathan Ashworth, said a Labour government would have a ‘moratorium’ on the STPs.
He said it was a ‘disgrace’ that decisions on STPs had been made ‘behind closed doors, with no genuine involvement of local people’.
Mr Ashworth said: ‘The public deserves better.
‘My first job as secretary of state will be to review every single STP proposal looking at what’s in the interest of quality of patient care.
‘Local people should be at the heart of decisions about how care is provided.’
Lib Dem shadow health secretary, Norman Lamb, added: ‘The original purpose of the STP process was a good thing – to bring fragmented parts of the system together, but it is based on the fantasy that there is enough money to deliver this vision, when the plans are now hundreds of millions of pounds short.’
NHS deficits swallowed £1.8bn of the £2.1bn sustainability and transformation fund for 2016/17.
