Clegg to outline vision for NHS

Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg is due to outline his ideas for the NHS, which are expected to focus on a "care guarantee" for the elderly. On a visit to an Age Concern centre in Kingston on Thames, Mr Clegg will unveil proposals that will be put to the Lib Dems' spring conference.

Mr Clegg has called the NHS one of the world's "most unequal health services". He would scrap central targets; allow fund-raising via a local income tax; and introduce local health boards. Mr Clegg, who became Lib Dem leader in December, has said NHS patients should have a guarantee of treatment within a specified time - and if that is not met, they should have private treatment, paid for by the NHS.

And he said the NHS was currently failing the people "who need it most" - as illustrated by varying life expectancies in neighbouring areas. He has also said people need to be able to take more control of the management of the NHS and their own care - including their own health budgets to spend on treatment for long-term and chronic conditions, particularly mental health problems.

Two weeks ago Conservative leader David Cameron said he wanted his party to replace Labour as "the party of the NHS" - the Tories have pledged to put the NHS at the top of their agenda, in the health service's 60th anniversary year. He axed his party's previous proposals to subside patients to go private and said he would set up an NHS constitution.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said he wants a more "personalised" NHS with a bigger focus on prevention - in a speech earlier this month, he said he wanted patients to see "the doctor you want at the time you want and the hospital you want". He has also signalled that he will press ahead with an NHS Constitution.