NHS polling – public tell Cameron to drop the bill

There’s some devastating YouGov polling on NHS “reform” for Cameron to digest today. Firstly, the public are firmly against his reforms. Almost half (48%) of the public oppose the reforms, compared to just 18% who back them.

But it’s not just the broad idea of the reforms that the public oppose – it’s the specifics. On the question of whether increasing competition in the NHS will improve health services (something which Labour were not against in principle in office), the public are similarly emphatic – only 19% say yes compared to 49% who say no:

The public are also believe that giving doctors more control over NHS budgets will make the service worse by a similar proportion (26% vs 41%). 50% of the public now believe that Cameron should drop the bill – compared to just 23% who think he should persevere. That shouldn’t be too much of a surprise. As Neil Foster noted here yesterday – Lord Ashcroft warned of the NHS reform risk a year ago.

Now that the right-wing press and the public have joined Labour, the Tory grassroots and members of the cabinet in opposing Lansley’s reforms – how much longer can the PM continue to back his health secretary, and these reforms?