Brown pledges to improve NHS

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Speaking at an event in central London organised by health foundation the King's Fund and Age Concern, the prime minister in waiting said the government should not just "pull levers".

At the beginning of the event, 37% of audience members thought the NHS would improve and 41% felt it would get worse. But by the end of the debate a huge leap saw 67% feeling it would improve and 24% saying it would get worse.

Mr Brown said he felt very strongly that "we have got to listen and learn more...there is no point in having a debate like this if nothing happens from it."

He said that there needed to be a range of services at a local level that were more accessible to people, particularly out of hours and at weekends, so patients were not forced to go to accident and emergency wards.

"We want an NHS still free at the point of need but it has got to be better," he said.

Mr Brown, who spent much of the afternoon in discussion with people at the event, said he was interested to hear what was being said about hospitals.

Most worries appeared not to be about surgical care but issues such as hospital food, cleanliness and MRSA, he added.

Age Concern and the King's Fund will produce a report from the forum.

Age Concern communications director Neil Churchill said: "The debate about the NHS does tend to be really polarised. What we are trying to do is to get the debate closer to people and bring people together with different perspectives."