'You can't wave a magic wand'

ASK Alan Milburn whether the extra money in the NHS is being spent wisely and he will throw the question back in your face.

"If you go to any doctor or nurse and ask them if they are working harder, they will say yes," says the Darlington MP, during a visit to The Northern Echo.

He was responding to claims by Tory health spokesman Dr Liam Fox that an extra 20 per cent spent on the NHS had resulted in just one and a half per cent more patients being treated.

"The figures are wrong," says Mr Milburn, who points out that the information is based on inpatient figures, which is only part of what the NHS does. "Since 1997, admissions to hospitals have increased by one million, an extra 1.75m are being seen in A and E and outpatients and the number of prescriptions has gone up by 11 per cent," says the former treasury minister, showing an impressive grasp of figures.

While he is proud of the achievements of the NHS since New Labour decided to turn on the funding taps, he remains insistent that it will take a decade to make a real difference.

"It will take ten years. It's better to be candid with people, you can't wave a magic wand," the Health Secretary insists. "You are trying to turn around a service which has had decades of neglect. Sometimes it looks as if the progress is slow, but the public will know that things are getting better when they experience a better service."

Mr Milburn is particularly pleased with progress in the fight against heart disease. Last week he met up with Dr Roger Boyle, the York heart specialist heading the national drive to improve services for heart patients, at the opening of a completely new heart unit in Wolverhampton.

Like Middlesbrough, where the existing heart unit is being expanded to treat more patients, Wolverhampton is a town with high levels of heart disease.

"I am confident about the progress we are making. By the end of March we will get the waiting list down to a maximum of nine months for heart operations - two years ago it was 18 months," the Cabinet minister adds.

In fact, Mr Milburn says he is pleased with the progress being made across the board with the NHS Plan.

With death rates for heart disease and cancer falling and the recruitment of nurses ahead of target, the minister believes things are going in the right direction.

But what about his controversial plan for foundation hospitals, a move which has angered the powerful health unions and got his predecessor Frank Dobson on his back?

Two weeks ago, the former Health Secretary denounced the plan to give some NHS hospitals greater freedom, including allowing them to vary rates of pay for staff, as a recipe for a two-tier Health Service.

Mr Milburn is unimpressed by the protests.

"I understand Frank's argument, but it is the wrong argument. You can't run an organisation as big and as complex as the NHS from an office in Whitehall. If you do that, you end up with doctors, nurses, managers and porters completely disempowered," he says.

"You have got to get the right combination of national standards but with local staff in charge with an input from local people. I want to get power out of Whitehall and into local hospitals. It is not about creating an elite of super hospitals - it would be a genuine form of public ownership", he insists.

As talk turns to the Iraq crisis and the fire-fighters' dispute, it becomes clear that the NHS is just the day job for this highly professional career politician.

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The Northern Echo has re-launched its online health website, Health Spectrum, which now has two new features. We are introducing a health question and answer feature, where a health practitioner from Remedies Health Centre, Darlington, will answer questions from a complementary health perspective. The second feature is Dear Debbie. This question and answer feature will see counsellor Debbie Hull providing guidance in response to readers' inquiries. To find out more, log on to www.thisisthenortheast.co.uk and click on Health Spectrum in the right-hand links.