Health workers: You can't keep us out forever

Mr Cameron will host the summit to discuss implementation of the government's widely discredited Health and Social Care Bill with a select list of health experts.

However, several key organisations including Unison, the British Medical Association, the Royal College of Nursing and the Royal College of General Practitioners - all of which are highly critical of the Bill - appear not to have been invited.

Unison senior national officer for health Sara Gorton demanded that Mr Cameron change his mind and engage with health professionals.

"Health workers should have their voices heard when major changes to the health service are being discussed.

"Clearly, Unison has not been invited because David Cameron and Andrew Lansley do not want to hear what we've got to say.

"But they need to face up to the truth that the Bill is damaging for patients and for the NHS," she said.

"Excluding our voices will not shut us up. Unison will continue to call for this flawed and dangerous Bill to be dropped and for the government to come clean about the risks it poses to patients and to the cost of NHS care."

Others dismissed the summit as little more than a PR exercise gone wrong for Mr Cameron.

A Keep NHS Public spokeswoman described the meeting as looking "less like a peace conference and more like Custer's last stand," in reference to the calamitous US general who led his army to defeat by Native Americans.

The government's own goal also coincided with yet more evidence that the public have had enough of the proposed "reforms" to the NHS.

A YouGov Poll for Progressive Polling/Unite the union shows that six times as many people trust health professionals than David Cameron or Andrew Lansley.

And 68 per cent want the government to publish its own risk register on the reforms which would detail the impact of the coalition's plans on the NHS - rising to 80 per cent for Liberal Democrat supporters.

The damning poll was published in the run-up to Wednesday's opposition debate in the House of Commons over the government's refusal to release the NHS risk register.

Commenting on the poll results Unite general secretary Len McCluskey said: "David Cameron is haemorrhaging trust over the Health Bill with public disquiet growing each day the government fights to keep the risk register secret. People have a right to know what damage these so-called reforms will do to their NHS."

johnm@peoples-press.com