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**Mick** · 07-04-2010, 21:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by superbiatch

So they wouldn't be deprived under the Tories? I don't believe much of what any politician says tbh, but the policy around healthcare is what is currently swinging it.

I manage a stop smoking service and practice as front line also.

Just found this from the Conservative Party website on Health and the NHS...

Quote:

Health

Over three years ago David Cameron spelled out his priorities in three letters – NHS. Since then, we have consistently fought to protect the values the NHS stands for and have campaigned to defend the NHS from Labour’s cuts and reorganisations.

As the party of the NHS, we will never change the idea at the heart of our NHS – that healthcare in this country is free at the point of use and available to everyone based on need, not ability to pay. Labour promised to save the NHS but today, despite the massive increase in spending, the gap in health outcomes between the UK and the rest of Europe has actually widened.

A decade of top-down, bureaucratic mismanagement has consistently undermined the professionalism and motivation of NHS staff and skewed NHS priorities away from patient care, creating a culture where ticking boxes is more important than giving patients the treatment they need. We can’t go on with an NHS that puts targets before patients.

We understand the pressures the NHS faces. In recognition of its special place in our society, we are committed to protecting health spending in real terms – we will not make the sick pay for Labour’s Debt Crisis. But that doesn’t mean the NHS shouldn’t change. When you’re more likely to die of cancer in Britain than most other countries in Europe – and when the number of managers in the NHS is rising almost three times as fast as the number of nurses – the question isn’t whether the NHS should change, it’s how the NHS should change. We have a reform plan to make the changes the NHS needs.

Our reform plan is based on the methods of the post-bureaucratic age – decentralisation, accountability and transparency. Applying these ideas to the NHS will help us improve it for everyone and allow us to meet people’s rising expectations. Instead of bureaucratic accountability there will be democratic accountability.

We will decentralise power, so that patients have a real choice. And by publishing information about the kind of results that healthcare providers are achieving, we will make sure there is no hiding place for failure. If patients don’t like what they are offered, they will be able to find something better. This will drive up standards by allowing people to choose the best providers and by encouraging hospitals to compete for patients. Making doctors and nurses accountable to patients, not to endless layers of bureaucracy, will also save billions that are currently spent on needless bureaucratic checks – meaning we can spend more on the frontline services that make a real difference.

When patients not only have the power to choose where they get treated but also the information to make an informed choice, then hospitals and GPs that don’t provide good care will have to raise their game. Doctors and nurses will need to use their new-found freedom to meet the needs of the most important people in the NHS – patients.

We are the party of the NHS today because we not only back the values of the NHS, we back its funding and we have a vision for its future.
You can read our draft manifesto on health using the document reader below, or alternatively click here to download a copy in PDF format.