The principle that all citizens should have access to vital health care is sacrosanct to us. The method of delivery is not. The NHS requires substantial reform. It is over-managed and yet underperforms and the escalating costs of medical technology, an ageing population together with widespread lifestyle diseases will place huge future burdens on the service. The NHS must concentrate on its core function of treating the seriously ill and must properly plan its workforce requirements. Social care must be provided on a universal basis to end the geographical lottery in provision.
POLICY PLEDGES:
- The NHS will train British citizens to fully satisfy its workforce requirements and end the practice of large-scale importation of doctors, nurses and other clinicians from developing countries. Specialist clinical universities will be established to achieve this.
- A National Care Service (NCS) shall be established which will organise, implement and fund social care throughout the country to provide good quality, comprehensive provision.
- Special measures will be applied to GP surgeries whose waiting times are in the bottom decile.
- NHS England will publish a plan annually describing resource requirements to reduce waiting times for elective surgery to 6 weeks, and waiting times at A&E times to under 3 hours.
- A public volunteer service for aged care will be established. Those over 65 who volunteer for front line roles in the public aged care sector will receive credits toward the costs of their own aged care, at the rate of £10,000 for each year of full-time service. In effect, this will reduce the upper limit on costs a person can be asked to pay toward his or her social care under the October 2023 Act.
- A national audit of the NHS will be undertaken and published, benchmarking its performance and costs against health care systems in other comparable nations, and issuing a headline report to all NI-eligible citizens.
- NHS management and overhead functions will be reduced in cost by 15% in real terms over the lifetime of the parliament, with the savings returned to front line care.
- Families who accommodate a parent over 80 years old in the same dwelling will be entitled to deduct 100% of the cost of state-funded aged care services from taxation.
- Clinical negligence claims will be capped by law at £50,000 (the current average award). NHS management and operatives’ compensation will be increased across the board by 5%, which will be reduced annually for upheld clinical negligence complaints across the service.
- National Insurance ID Cards will be issued to all eligible persons to help ensure that health services are provided for those who are entitled to them.
- The NHS will not fund DEI initiatives or champion any contested political causes. Services will be provided in English and Welsh only.
- Counsellors and psychotherapists will be regulated by a General Counselling and Psychotherapy Council in the same manner as other professions regulated by General Council.