Wiritng for The Guardian’s Comment Is Free blog today, Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg welcomes Labour’s U-turn on NHS top-up payments:

The rules that forced patients to pay the full cost of their NHS care if they chose to use their own savings for an expensive but life-saving drug were clearly unsustainable. Worse, the rules were inhuman and unjust.

Nobody pretends that it isn’t a difficult issue, but it is unacceptable to continue to deny people the right to top up their care, particularly where they are following their doctor’s advice. …

There must be no fragmentation of care; those who pay for top-ups should not take away from the NHS, it must not pave the way for queue-jumping in the NHS. Any impression that the NHS is subsidising private care must be avoided, and we must not allow the NHS to shrink to provision of a few basic services. …

Today’s announcement is an important step to a more liberal NHS: one that truly values choice. However, the challenge is to avoid this undermining the important principle of equity and to ensure that it goes hand-in-hand with much-improved access under the NHS to life-saving drugs routinely available overseas.

You can read the full article here.