The shadow health secretary has said that greater choice and alternative sources of funding will be key to his review of Tory health policy.

In a speech to think-tank Civitas, Dr Liam Fox hinted that his party was looking at extending the role of private provision of healthcare.

"There is no mystery about the NHS's failings. Because it is wholly financed from the Exchequer, it is subject to an inflexible Treasury control which has resulted in under-provision," he said.

He said that greater choice for patients would be a key theme. "A pivotal element of the reforms we will outline over the coming months will be increased choice for patients," Fox said.

"In today's NHS, patients have no meaningful choice over the treatment they receive. And the so-called 'choice' which Alan Milburn plans to introduce over the next couple of years is little more than a sham."

Fox added that the only "incontrovertible principle" for his party was that no-one should be denied necessary medical treatment simply because they could not afford to pay for it.

Echoing remarks made by Iain Duncan Smith earlier on Monday, the shadow health secretary said the Left had no monopoly on compassion.

"Unfortunately, the Left have often been better at spinning a line than we Conservatives have. And they never tire of trying to convince the public that the proof of a politician's compassionate credentials is how much he increases government spending," Fox said.

He said it was vital that Conservatives did not "squander" the current debate on the National Health Service.

"We must not allow our opponents to portray criticisms of the institutional failures of the NHS as criticisms of dedicated NHS staff. It is quite the reverse as many of those who see most clearly the effects on their patients are afraid to speak out for fear of politically motivated retaliation."

Fox said that the current failures of the NHS were letting down "many of the poorest people in Britain" most of all.

"Like many others who cut their teeth in Conservative politics in the early 1980s, I regard the fundamental mission of the Conservative Party as being to liberate and empower the individual citizen. Indeed, it was our historic mission long before that and it is as relevant today as it has ever been."

The shadow health secretary argued that the current system of healthcare is "arrogant and insensitive and, despite the best efforts of dedicated men and women, it becomes captured by the vested interests of a self-sustaining bureaucracy at the expense of consumers".

"Bureaucratic centralism isn't simply incompatible with personal choice. It is designed to be so. The preferences of politicians are deliberately put before the individual needs of patients in the NHS as it exists today," he said.

The alternative, Conservative, approach was to allow flexibility and diversity in the provision of public services, argued Fox.

"This is as much a moral as a material imperative. It is by making choices that we fulfil our destinies, that we grow as individuals, that we assert our existence.

"And the wonderful truth is...that the more we are allowed to make our own choices, the more we contribute more towards the progress of society as a whole."