Patients who do not get the treatment that they need from the NHS within 18 weeks are to be given the legal right to free private care.

The Cabinet agreed this week that the legislation, placing maximum waiting times on the statute book for the first time, should be rushed through Parliament before the next election.

Cancer patients, in particular, will receive funding for private treatment if they have not seen an NHS specialist within two weeks of GP referral.

Downing Street says that the two legal rights, which will be unveiled in next month’s Queen’s Speech, are designed to entrench the dramatic reduction of NHS waiting lists over recent years. Tom Baldwin and Sam Lister, The Times.

What a brilliant idea – let’s take money from the NHS and give it to private health care companies – that’s really going to improve the service. Still the Tories are even more clueless apart from phasing out NHS targets – which seems daft considering they’ve produced results – they’ve said little.