Comprehensive healthcare, available to all, on the basis of need, not ability to pay. These are the ideals of the NHS – yesterday, today and tomorrow.
But the way the NHS is run means it is not living up to those ideals in practice.
In today's NHS, healthcare is neither 'comprehensive' nor 'available to all'. Life-saving drugs are available in some parts of the country but not in others. Some patients have to wait many months for routine operations.
Nor is the NHS treating patients 'on the basis of need not the ability to pay'. Today almost a million people are waiting for medical treatment. The reality is that only those patients who can afford to pay have any choice or control over their care. Seven million people now pay for private insurance,
and each year 300,000 uninsured people have to use their savings to pay for treatment themselves.
Despite the efforts of many thousands of dedicated doctors, nurses and local managers, the way the NHS is run stops them providing the best care for
their patients.
That's why, despite spending on health increasing by almost 40% from 1998 to 2003, the number of hospital treatments has only increased by just over 5%. In today's unreformed NHS, the extra money is not making enough of a difference.
Why is this? One reason is that the Government tries to run everything itself from Whitehall. Ministers, not patients or professionals, decide NHS priorities and dictate how money should be spent. This level of control requires a huge bureaucracy.
The cost of administration in the Department of Health alone has increased by £40 million since 1997. Total spending on NHS administrators has increased by £2 billion – a faster rate than the spending on clinical staff. The number of managers and senior managers has increased at almost triple the rate of new doctors and nurses. The NHS is being held back by the burden of bureaucracy, targets and red tape. In a recent poll 95% of doctors said that the Government's central targets distort clinical priorities and adversely affect patient care. Over 80% think the burden of red tape stops them devoting as much time to their patients as they would like.
It is time for a different approach. No other country runs their health service the way we do. Waiting lists simply don't exist in Germany and France. 25,000 lives a year would be saved if we met the best European standards in cancer care. The British people should not have to put up with second best.
The way the NHS is organised is basically the same as when it was first created in 1948. But that is now a bygone age when even food, let alone healthcare, was rationed. Today, people expect high standards, responsive services – and choice.
We stand by the ideals of the NHS. But we know that we can only deliver on them if doctors and nurses are set free from politicians' interference – and if patients are put at the heart of the system. Britain is a first class country. We deserve a first class NHS.
