A Conservative Government will transform the NHS. Our aim is to eliminate waiting lists within our first Parliament.
The NHS requires real reform, and brave decisions by the Government. But the NHS should not be run from above, through top-down instructions by ministers.
Conservatives will transform the NHS from the bottom-up – according to the needs and wishes of the patients who use it and the professional judgement of those who work in it.
We will do this in three ways.
- The Right to Choose
We will:
Give every patient the right to treatment at any NHS hospital in the country. Choice will be unrestricted and immediate.
Give every patient the right to treatment at any independent hospital that can treat patients at the standard NHS tariff.
Give every patient who chooses a more expensive hospital half the NHS tariff, cutting the cost of private insurance and self-payment.
Give the NHS the resources to make the Right to Choose work. We will invest an extra £34 billion a year in the NHS by 2009/10 beyond the level of spending we inherit.
- Freedom for Professionals
We will:
Free doctors and local managers to set their own priorities without Government interference, by scrapping all central targets imposed on hospitals.
Free hospitals from bureaucracy by scrapping the Star Rating system.
Free hospitals by giving them all Foundation status – with real freedoms. Every hospital will be allowed to set its own employment policies and borrow money to invest in research, facilities and staff.
Free GPs to refer their patients to any hospital that can treat them to required standards.
- The Right to Supply
We will:
Give independent healthcare providers the right to treat NHS patients, free of charge to the patients, if they can meet the NHS price and standards. If patients choose more expensive private care, they will be entitled to half the NHS cost.
