Tony Blair last night appealed to nursing leaders not to play into the hands of those who want to scrap the health service and to "show solidarity" during any winter crisis, as he admitted underinvesting in the NHS for his first three years in power. Speaking at an NHS conference in Brighton, the prime minister said he would "stand or fall" by his decision to stick to Tory spending measures in the early years of the Labour government, which, he confessed, meant nurses were working "flat out" and the NHS had been underfunded.
But he urged senior nurses not to turn on him if hospitals succumbed to a bed crisis this winter. Claiming hospitals were better prepared for winter than last year, he said: "There are tremendous pressures in the winter ... but I don't think we should be in any doubt there are those who would use the state of the national health service this winter to say it's hopeless.
"People within the health service, we should have some sense of solidarity against those who say because these problems exist the national health service isn't worth saving."
The prime minister's appeal for support came as, with the onset of winter, the government prepares for an onslaught of criticism both from the opposition benches and the media, whom the health secretary, Alan Milburn, last week accused of being "determined to have their crisis". The prime minister's spokesman has already accused BBC Radio 4's Today programme of scaremongering.
Yesterday Mr Blair tried to explain why he had failed to channel sufficient money into the NHS until this year.
Likening his "two, nearly three, tough years on public spending" with the "responsible" stance he had shown towards the fuel protesters, he said he had made the "tough decision" to keep interest rates low and to encourage investment. But Mr Blair admitted: "It all came at a price ... It meant we didn't start really to invest in the NHS in the way we wanted until this year. So you were working flat out and often still are in an NHS that was underfunded."
He added: "I would like to have got more money more quickly into the health service but I am sure the way I am doing it now will get the money that lasts."
During his speech at the chief nursing officers' conference, the prime minister also announced a bonus of up to £1,000 for nurses priced out of living near their hospitals, with senior nurses in London receiving the top amount, juniors £600, and those living in parts of the south where property prices are highest an average of £500.
In a move aimed at luring more nurses back to the NHS, he revealed that a "nursing bank" would be set up to allow nurses to work whenever they wanted.
Working in a similar way to private agencies, the scheme - called NHS Professionals - would give nurses holiday pay and enable them to stay in the NHS pension scheme. But it would prove cheaper for the taxpayer, since private agencies currently cost the NHS more than £350m.
Mr Blair's admission that the NHS had been underfunded was described as "better late than never" by the Liberal Democrat health spokesman Nick Harvey, who said: "One accepts that some stern financial management was needed, but to do that at the expense of starving the NHS of crucial and much needed resources meant taking that dose of medicine more quickly than was needed in retrospect."
The shadow health secretary, Liam Fox, said the Tories could not be blamed for inadequate levels of investment. "Tony Blair is the 'not me guv' prime minister and problems with underfunding are entirely his government's fault.
"He's only admitting to underinvestment now because everyone who works in the service realises the NHS is worse than it was three years ago."
