The Prime Minister was unveiling a draft legislative programme designed to show that the government is "on the side of the British people".

Mr Brown used a draft Queen's Speech to promise an NHS reform bill as he attempted to claw his government back out of the deepest trough in its fortunes for more than a decade.

Under the proposals, patients will be given more rights over their health care under an NHS constitution.

Payments to hospitals will be adjusted according to "patient satisfaction" and "health outcomes", Mr Brown said.

This could mean those hospitals with high levels of complaints from patients will be financially penalised.

In another initiative, the government announced plans to give every worker time off for training. There will also be a greater obligation on councils to improve standards in underperforming schools.

Ministers have already announced how they are focusing on the 638 state secondary schools – including 14 in Leeds – which fall short of the benchmark of 30 per cent of pupils achieving five A* - C grades at GCSE, including English and maths.

The draft Queen's Speech also included plans to set up a £200m fund to buy unsold new homes and rent them to social tenants or make them available on a shared ownership basis.

An additional £100m will also be made available to shared equity schemes to help more first-time buyers to purchase newly-built homes on the open market.

This follows an embarrassing slip-up when housing minister Caroline Flint revealed that ministers expect property prices to slump by at least five-10 per cent this year.

The government has also signalled that there will be more democratically elected representatives on police authorities to scrutinise police forces. But they have rejected plans for US-style elected sheriffs.

Ministers also plan to introduce an immigration bill and a welfare reform bill, which will include new compulsions on benefit claimants to enter into training programmes.

The draft programme included 18 bills in total.

Following its disaster at the May 1 local elections, Labour has plummeted in the polls – trailing the Tories by 16 per cent in the latest survey.

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