Relaunch: Reid

Reform of the NHS hospital system may be relaunched, the health secretary has hinted.

John Reid revealed on Sunday that he might find a new name for the foundation hospital programme because the phrase has become a distraction.

The health secretary told the BBC that the public did not understand the phrase and it had become a rallying point for opponents of the change.

The government was hit by a massive rebellion by Labour MPs in May over the plans to give independence from Whitehall to top-performing hospitals.

And ministers are braced for more disputes with union leaders and Labour's left during the conference season which is now underway.

Reid said he believed foundation hospitals were true to Labour's principles and warned campaigners that the government was committed to the reform process with or without a name change.

"We can change it, I am always willing to refine it, but I want to make the key point. I am 100 per cent committed to the founding principle of the National Health Service. That is health care, free at the point of need to which people have equal access," he said.

Reid echoed the prime minister's view that presentation is a key problem for the government and he also accepted that hospital reform had been hit by the government's fall in trust among the public.

The health secretary predicted that a change in the government's communications strategy following the resignation of Alastair Campbell would help repair some of the damage.

"This is a two-way process. Do I think that we have a problem with trust? Yes we do have a problem with trust. We have had to change," he said.

"We did what we had to do to prevent our case being misrepresented and our leader and the prime minister being maligned in the way it was. That serves for a while, but after a while you have to change that and you have to become more open.''