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DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Now than, three months to save the National Health Service, that’s the claim from the Labour leader, Ed Miliband today. He’s calling for a cross-party campaign to defeat the government’s controversial health reforms which return to the House of Lords next week. Well joining me is Health Minister, Simon Burns but first let’s talk to Labour’s Shadow Health Secretary, Andy Burnham, who is in Warrington. A very good morning to you both and Mr Burnham, you have aired very often your concerns about this Health Bill but three months to save the NHS, that’s a bit alarmist isn’t it?

ANDY BURNHAM: No, it’s not. If this Bill gets through, Dermot, I think it’s the end of the NHS as we know it. It plans to free market the heart of the system and I think you’ve got to go back to the beginning with this Bill. The government don’t have a mandate for what they are doing, nobody voted for it, it wasn’t in the Tory manifesto, it wasn’t in the Lib Dem manifesto, it was ruled out by the Coalition Agreement, so basically they don’t have a mandate. It was a reform that was meant to be about empowering NHS staff, well the situation as it stands today is that organisations representing 1.2 million NHS staff are now standing in outright opposition. Now in those circumstances I am saying clearly to go ahead now is to put the NHS at great risk because they will damage the relationships that underpin our National Health Service and that will be a terrible mistake, particularly when it is facing such a large financial challenge.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: We understand those concerns and as I say, you have much aired them, but three months to save the NHS? So the NHS will cease to exist in May? You can’t be serious about that, such a large organisation, of course it will continue. It does need reform you will accept, why not engage with the government here and get the right kind of reform?

ANDY BURNHAM: Well I’ve said that Dermot, you may remember, on your programme. I said look, drop the Bill and I’ll work with you to introduce GP led commissioning. I’ve no problem with that but it can be done perfectly well, safely and in fact more cheaply, through the existing structures of the NHS and that is the problem. This Bill is not about GP led commissioning, it is about creating a market at the heart of the NHS, pitting one hospital against another, giving hospitals freedom to earn up to half of their income from the treatment of private patients so it’s a genie out of the bottle moment. It wants to pit one hospital against another in a competitive market, that is a break with those 63 years of NHS history where we have had a collaborative NHS standing behind each other, working for the best interests of patients. The NHS still represents something special to people in this country, it is one area of national life where people truly come before profits. If this Bill goes through I don't think that will be the case any longer.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Okay, Mr Burnham, if you would stay with us because I want to put some of those points to Mr Burns. You’ve heard what Mr Burnham has had to say, Simon Burns. First of all, why not? I’m sure that people who use the NHS and work in the NHS are saying why not engage with Andy Burnham, why not come up with something that all parties can support?

SIMON BURNS: Well, the basic tenement of the modernisation is something that the NHS staff have been saying for years which is cut out the bureaucracy, cut out the micro management and interference by politicians so that they have the freedom to get on with providing first class care for patients and that is the main thrust of the modernisation programme. We have also been prepared to listen, we set up the independent Future Forum last year which consulted with the NHS over two months. They came up with a number of recommendations to improve and strengthen the Bill and we have now accepted all those core recommendations and have tabled amendments to meet some of the concerns and confusion that people had about what is going on.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: But Mr Burns, some of the concerns and the confusion, as you put it, about what’s going on, are coming from tens of thousands of health professionals, all these Royal Colleges that say we’re again it, most notably the people who you want to take the commissioning decisions, the GPs.

SIMON BURNS: Well actually on the ground the evidence does not support that. We have got organisations within the NHS that do fully support the modernisation programme, the Royal College of Gynaecologists, the Family Doctors Association, the Primary Care National Association and what I find when I go round talking to GPs who are actually now engaged and beginning to commission care for their patients, that they are enthusiastic because they are being empowered to provide the care that they think is most relevant and needed for their patients so the story is not what you would hear from what are basically trade unions and organisations that are out of touch with many of their members out there beginning the process of implementing the commissioning.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: GPs are out of touch with their patients?

SIMON BURNS: Well the Royal College of GPs that you mentioned, in their survey 8% of their membership took part in it, it was a self-selecting survey where you could vote more than once and you could vote if you were abroad. That is not truly representative and does not reflect what GPs who are engaged in commissioning at the moment are telling me and my colleagues when we go round the country. They are enthusiastic about being empowered to provide first class care for their patients.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: But so many of the other Royal Colleges – the nurses – they are implacably opposed to it. As I said, legions, tens of thousands of health professionals are opposed to this Bill, would it not be better to ditch it and to start all over again?

SIMON BURNS: No, it would not be, it would be irresponsible to ditch it because the NHS has got to evolve because of the challenges that are facing it with an aging population, a drugs bill that increased last year by £600 million alone and by the developments in medical science and so we must move forward to make sure that the NHS can cope but what I would like is for less hyperbole as we’ve seen in the national papers today, less constant carping from the sidelines so that the NHS can have the stability to move forward and implement the modernisation programme that I believe will significantly improve and enhance patient care by putting patients at the centre of that care.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Well just let me put some of those points again to Andy Burnham. Well Andy Burnham, you heard it there, you’re carping from the sidelines, you amongst others. Your tactics, now we are hearing that uncompromising message from Simon Burns that they plough on with the Bill, are your tactics now to get Labour peers to make common cause with cross benches and Lib Dem ones who have concerns about this Bill and just try and amend it out of all recognition?

ANDY BURNHAM: No, our aim here is to have the Bill dropped. I think it’s the Minister who has just shown that he is totally out of touch. I spend time shadowing NHS staff across the country and they are all saying the same thing, they don’t want this Bill. It is causing great uncertainty just at the time when the NHS needs stability and the Minister talks about stability, well the quickest way you could give the NHS the stability it needs is to allow it work through the existing structures of the NHS. To go forward with a reorganisation that turns everything upside down, that costs £3.5 billion, how can that possibly make any sense particularly when it’s being done in the teeth of opposition from NHS staff. They are risking the NHS in doing this and our plea to the Minister and to the government is put the NHS first. To be honest it probably suits us politically if they carried on because we would then say look at the mess they’re making of the NHS but it’s time for all parties to put the NHS first and give it the stability it needs.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Simon Burns, a lot of people listening to this may say – some may not – you do seem slightly blinkered about all this given the concerns from health professionals, from the opposition, some patients as well. Why not, if the Bill is going to suffer more amendments and therefore will be unrecognisable from the original blueprint presented by Andrew Lansley, why not try again?

SIMON BURNS: Because there is no need to. What Andy Burnham glosses over and fails to mention is that we have listened through the independent Future Forum, where we accepted all their core recommendations that improved and strengthened the Bill. We have also had a significant number of discussions with peers in the House of Lords to strengthen areas like where there were concerns over the duties and responsibilities of the Secretary of State to provide a comprehensive health service, where we have drafted together with them, those other peers, amendments that hope and will seek to eliminate the confusion and the misunderstanding about that and to clarify the situation. So we are listening and when recommendations come up that are beneficial but that support and improve the Bill, we make them. Furthermore, Andy Burnham keeps repeating this mistake that he says the cost of the modernisation is £3 billion. He knows it’s not, the impact assessment shows it is between £1.2 and £1.3 billion as a one-off payment and by the end of this parliament there will be savings of £4.5 billion of which every penny will be reinvested in health care.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Okay, well gentlemen I know that debate will continue, we can be assured of that, not least in the House of Lords, we shall watch its passage through that with interest but for the moment, Simon Burns and Andy Burnham, thank you both very much indeed for your time.