A CAMPAIGN to hold the Prime Minister to account over his promises this week on the NHS was last night backed by key health organisations in the North-East.

The Northern Echo is launching Health Watch – and we want YOU to become our eyes and ears.

We want our readers – particularly those of you who work for or are being treated by the NHS – to tell us whether David Cameron is keeping his pledges to protect the NHS.

The campaign launch comes after the Archbishop of Canterbury yesterday launched a stinging attack on the Government’s reforms of the NHS. Health Watch has already been backed by the main health trade unions in the North-East including the British Medical Association, the Royal College of Nursing, Unison and the Royal College of Midwives.

This week, Mr Cameron responded to widespread criticism of his Government’s proposed health reforms by indicating a number of concessions.

They included giving the health regulator Monitor a duty to promote integration rather than competition.

But Mr Cameron went further than this and gave five personal guarantees to voters.

He pledged that:

• NHS spending would rise;
• The NHS would remain a universal service;
• Changes would improve integrated health care;
• Hospital waiting times would be kept low;
• The NHS would not be privatised and increased competition would benefit patients.

On the same day he gave these guarantees, The Northern Echo was told that because of the demands of the Government’s national efficiency drive – which aims to save £20bn across the NHS by 2015 – the South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust was having to cut £22m out of the budget.

And the trust said that contrary to the PM’s assurances of funding increases for the NHS, it started the financial year with £6m less in the kitty.