Andrew Lansley says new evidence uncovered by the Conservatives makes a mockery of Gordon Brown's claims to be protecting frontline NHS spending.
Buried in Government reports, we have uncovered secret plans that could lead to cuts of almost £5 billion in total in the NHS budget.
"Gordon Brown promised voters that he would protect the NHS and protect frontline services, but these figures reveal that Labour are actually planning secret cuts", Lansley, the Shadow Health Secretary, said.
"They will cut the number of nurses, the number of doctors and the number of hospital beds. It does not get more frontline than that."
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More than half of hospitals are planning to cut the number of doctors they employ. We have uncovered plans for a net cut of 650 doctors in England.
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More than half of hospitals are planning to cut the number of nurses they employ. We have uncovered plans for a net cut of more than 2,000 nurses in England.
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NHS West Midlands – the only area to provide regional figures – is on its own planning to cut almost 1,000 nurses.
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Three in five hospitals are planning bed cuts. We have uncovered plans for net bed cuts of 1,500 in England.
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We have also obtained a copy of the workforce plan of one trust, which shows a four per cent cut in the number of consultants and a ten per cent cut in the number of nurses and midwives.
"Under Labour, the number of managers has risen five times faster than the number of nurses", Lansley said. "Our NHS has been weighed down by a bloated bureaucracy which means precious resources aren’t being spent on helping patients".
"Only the Conservatives will protect the whole of the NHS budget – both Labour and the Lib Dems have refused to do so. We will cut NHS bureaucracy by a third and we will make sure frontline patient care comes first."