Clarke: NHS should charge for service

Former home secretary Charles Clarke has said NHS patients should be charged for some of the services they receive.

In a report for services firm KPMG, Mr Clarke suggested current reforms to public services – described by public sector unions as creeping privatisation – should be extended to the point of charging for services.

"The ability to charge users might well improve access to some public services which might otherwise not even exist, and may bring to the public sector income which would otherwise be private," Mr Clarke writes.

Mr Clarke also argued for educational fees outside of core educational activities, extending higher education loans to non-university courses taken by the over-16's.

The comments are by far the furthest to the right any Cabinet or former Cabinet minister has dared to stray on the matter of the NHS. Most political analysts believe the health service to be a borderline religion in the eyes of the public and very rarely do MPs dare to challenge the 'free-at-the-point-of-use' benchmark.

It will also be interpreted by some onlookers as a further attempt to guide prime minister Gordon Brown's public sector reform.