Brown pledges 'wider reform' of NHS

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In his first major speech on the issue as Prime Minister, Mr Brown said creating a more personalised and preventative service would be the Government's "highest priority".

"The NHS of the future will do more than just treat patients who are ill - it will be an NHS offering prevention as well," he said at Kings College in London.

"The NHS of the future will be more than a universal service - it will be a personal service too. It will not be the NHS of the passive patient - the NHS of the future will be one of patient power, patients engaged and taking greater control over their own health and their healthcare, too.

"And so if the NHS is to change like this - to meet the challenges of 21st century healthcare and our 21st century lives - we will have to embrace even deeper and wider reform."

Setting out his screening initiative, the Prime Minister pledged that "over time, everyone in England will have access to the right preventative health check-up".

"A more personal and preventative service will be one that intervenes earlier, with more information and control put more quickly into the hands of patient and clinician," he said.

In the first move, men aged over 65 would be given an ultrasound to detect early abdominal aortic aneurysm, or "Triple A", saving up to 1,600 lives a year, he said. A series of tests to identify vulnerability to heart and circulation problems would then be introduced on the NHS to go alongside check-ups for strokes, diabetes and kidney disease.

Blood tests, ECGs and ultrasounds would also be made available in GP surgeries "when you want and need them", he said, and new methods recommended by a screening watchdog made available "to everyone", not just private patients.

The Prime Minister also warned under-performing hospital management teams that they would be removed as part of "new and decisive action against failing services".