LONDON (Reuters) - Private companies could have a greater role in providing state-funded health treatment in Britain under plans to be announced on Monday after a review of the 60-year-old National Health Service.

During more than a decade in power, Prime Minister Gordon Brown's Labour Party has increased spending on health care dramatically, but his opponents say he and predecessor Tony Blair did not go far enough to change how the system is run.

Meanwhile, doctors and unions have complained bitterly about plans to allow companies to bid for contracts to provide services like primary care "polyclinics", which would be bigger and open for longer hours than traditional doctors' surgeries.

Brown has seen his poll numbers nosedive since taking over from Blair a year ago.

The NHS, which employs 1.3 million people in England and will spend more than 100 billion pounds ($200 billion) next year, is the crown jewel of Britain's welfare state and changes to how it is run could turn into an important political issue.

The government is committed to giving free care to all, but says competition among providers can ensure the best quality.

"If the challenge 10 years ago was capacity, the challenge today is to drive improvements in the quality of care," Brown said in the foreword to a review of the cradle-to-grave health programme in England being published later.

"We need a more personalised NHS, responsive to each of us as individuals, focused on prevention, better equipped to keep us healthy and capable of giving us real control and real choices over our care and our lives." Scotland and Wales run their own health services.

The year-long study by Health Minister Ara Darzi will be unveiled together with a draft NHS "constitution", setting out patients' entitlements to healthcare.

Under the "constitution", all patients will have a stronger guarantee to receive care approved by the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE), which reviews the cost effectiveness of treatments. The institute is expected to get more funding to speed its reviews.

US healthcare companies have already made moves to supply services to the NHS. UnitedHealth Inc set up a British subsidiary in 2004 which promises to "take over the management of existing practices or develop new ones" in primary care.

Darzi, who is also a surgeon, is expected to promise more autonomy to clinicians and regional health authorities, with fewer targets from the central government.

Patients will be offered more choice over where they receive treatment and greater information on the success of treatments at individual hospitals.

Plans to build a network of 150 supersized polyclinics are already under way, offering patients access to a team of family doctors and nurses seven days a week.

Copyright Reuters 2008. Click for Restrictions