Tories reveal plans for reducing NHS costs and funding residential care for elderly people

The Conservatives’ shadow health secretary, Andrew Lansley, has pledged to cut NHS administration costs by £1.5bn (€1.6bn; $2.4bn) in the next four years.

Speaking at the party’s conference in Manchester this week, Mr Lansley promised to reduce spending on health service bureaucracy, which he estimated at £4.5bn. He said that primary care trusts, strategic health authorities, health “quangos,” and the Department of Health would all face cuts, with savings being passed on to frontline services.

Mr Lansley committed a future Conservative government to improving patients’ choice, abolishing political targets, and transferring power “out from the centre, into the hands of health …