Andrew Lansley compromises on NHS reforms

London: Health Secretary Andrew Lansley is to launch a last-ditch attempt to rescue his controversial NHS reforms by accepting that membership of new GP-led consortiums should be widened.

Lansley is to agree with the broad principles of proposals made by the health select committee, chaired by John Major's last health secretary, Stephen Dorrell, although he will resist many of the detailed recommendations.

Lansley was forced to announce to MPs on Monday that he would amend his plans, during a "natural break" in the passage of the heath and social care bill. His reforms would hand 60 per cent of the NHS's £103 billion (Dh617.3 billion) budget to new GP-led consortiums.

Government sources said he was studying proposals by the committee, which warned GPs should not be the sole commissioners of care in the NHS. The committee called for GPs to share commissioning powers and responsibility with nurses, consultants, public health experts and patients.

Lansley, who met David Cameron in Downing Street on Monday, made a statement to MPs about the progress of a bill which had still not completed its stages in the Commons.

Lansley will accept some of the broad principles; a sign of nervousness from Downing Street, which fears the public backlash is jeopardising Cameron's work in persuading the public that the NHS is safe in Tory hands.

"Some of the ideas suggested by the committee are in sync with the government's thinking on how, for example, others might be involved in the GP consortia," one source said.

Lansley will outline the amendments at a joint appearance later this week with the prime minister and Nick Clegg. The health secretary told MPs the amendments would make clear there would be no backdoor privatisation of the NHS.