In a dramatic change to the publicly provided healthcare system, in a policy statement entitled Building Britain's Future, tomorrow Prime Minister Gordon Brown will unveil greater involvement of the private sector, by offering cancer patients private treatment if none is available on the NHS.

Private doctors will for the first time be paid by the state, to see cancer patients unable to access NHS specialists, within the two-week target set by the Government.

After years of opposing Tony Blair's public services suggested reforms, Brown wishing to portray himself as a radical reformer, in a move opposition parties claim is a climb down, has come up with a proposal bearing strong resemblance to the Tories' former 'Patient's Passport' policy.

Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), the think-tank which launched the careers of David Miliband and Patricia Hewitt and most associated with Blair's glory years, last night dramatically declared the New Labour project as dead, saying it is turning its back on the party.

Marking its 21st birthday tomorrow, IPPR says the Government under Mr Brown no longer offers fresh and progressive ideas responsible for winning the party three election victories.

If, nothing else, this confirms the ideological struggle confronting Labour, if it wishes to stand any chance of winning the next election, including the challenge facing Mr. Brown of convincing his party he is making progress.

MP Alan Milburn, former health secretary clashing with Mr Brown over health services privatisation, yesterday announced he would be standing down at the next elections, quitting to pursue 'other challenges'.

Lisa Harker, IPPR's co-director stating all three parties have failed to acknowledge the challenges posed by the economic crisis, climate change, including loss of faith in politics, added: 'New Labour is dead. Old Labour is dead. Potentially progressive Conservatism is dead. None of these provide answers. What is required is a radical shift'.

According to government sources, if a cancer patient is not provided with a specialist doctor on the NHS within two weeks of their GP's referral, the primary care trust will have to pay for equivalent cost private consultation.

Since in practice, only 97% of England's NHS trusts meet the deadline, it means this would apply to just a few hundred patients.

But, changing public provision of healthcare which only allows for acute treatment at present, such as, elective surgery for hip replacements and cataract surgery, through private treatment centres, Brown in a key speech made six years ago, made it clear he believed in the principle of a publicly provided NHS, said: 'Equality of access can best be guaranteed not just by public funding of healthcare but by public provision'.

In UK, there are over 150,000 cancer related deaths every year, and two in five developing cancer in their lifetimes.