Labour has turned its back on the poorest people who use the NHS, the Liberal Democrats have claimed.

The party's health spokesman, Dr Evan Harris, told the Brighton conference that NHS costs had been massively increased since the government came to office.

Harris also called for a change in the tax system - with a new 50 per cent tax bracket - to pay for hospitals and health staff.

Promises that the NHS would remain free at the point of delivery had been broken by successive health secretaries, he said.

"Millions of patients are forced to pay an extra tax at the point of delivery in the dental chair, at the opticians, at the door of the nursing home," Harris said.

The Liberal Democrats claim that prescription charge income has risen by 30 per cent since 1997.

And Harris warned that eye and dental charges led to people putting off treatment which was a barrier to preventative medicine.

The people most affected were those who already suffered poor health and lower life chances, said Dr Harris.

The conference also heard details of new policies for the NHS and a call for an end to its monopoly of healthcare provision.

A combination of the NHS, private, mutual and voluntary providers would increase quality, value for money and patient choice, he predicted.

"This is critical to providing genuine informed choice for patients and for those who commission healthcare on their behalf," argued Dr Harris.

But the big announcement was the call for a change in the way the country pays for the NHS.

There would be no further rises in taxation to pay for health costs.

Following the National Insurance rise, Dr Harris said "we have already won the argument".

"It is now a question of whether the tax revenue is raised fairly and whether it is spent wisely," he said.

The extra charges for treatments such as eye tests amounted to an additional tax on people already on low incomes.

The party's commitment to create a 50 pence rate of tax on incomes of over £100,000 a year would fund an end to the charging regime.

Harris admitted to journalists that the "sweetener" for this would be that the elderly would no longer have to sell their homes to pay for care home charges; leaving inheritances intact.

Reforming the government's drug buying list would also bring savings.

Dr Harris also renewed the party's attack on the government's health targets.

And he described the foundation hospitals programme as flawed.

"Judging performance by political targets lets clinicians off the hook, forces managers to massage not manage and fails patients," he said.

The Liberal Democrat agenda brought a swift rebuttal from health secretary John Reid.

He claimed that the prescription charge was already free to Britain's poorest people.

"Currently 85 per cent of people don't pay for their prescriptions. This latest set of proposals would cost £2 billion but do nothing to help the poorest or improve the NHS," he claimed.