Lansley promises to secure spending on healthcare as part of a ten point SAVE OUR NHS plan

Shadow Secretary of State for Health has just addressed the Cheltenham Spring Forum.  He set out a ten point healthcare plan - summarised by the acrostic S.A.V.E. O.U.R. N.H.S.

1. Sustain NHS values: The Tories will continue to provide a healthcare service accessible to all and free at the point of use.  The reaffirmation of this commitment is a key reason why the Tories are level-pegging with Labour on the party trusted with the NHS, Mr Lansley said.  Labour had a 42% advantage in 1997.  28% in 2001 and 14% in 2005.  Recent polling also showed that GPs are back in the Tory fold.
2. Access for all.  Conservatives will defend local services.
3. Value for money.  Conservatives will dismantle bureaucracy and make competition work. Much more information will be provided so that consumers are empowered to choose between competing suppliers.
4. Excellence for everyone. Britain does not compare well with other European nations.  Five year cancer survival rates remain, for example, among the worst in Europe. We are on par with Poland and Slovenia not Sweden and Germany. We are slowest in take up of new cancer treatments although we are European leaders in research. Conservatives will ensure Britain is judged by international comparisons.
5. Over to the professionals [Mr L was having to work harder with the acronym at this point!]. Conservatives will trust clinical judgment and scrap most of Labour's targets.  There will be better workforce training and development.
6. Unleash patient power.  There'll be an information revolution to that patients can see how different hospitals and NHS Trusts are performing.
7. Respect for patients. As announced at the Birmingham Party Conference last year there'll be 45,000 more single room as the Conservatives progressively move towards the abolition of all mixed sex wards.
8. National plan for prevention. A new government-wide focus on healthy living and wellbeing will improve health.  Health is about more than direct diet and exercise but also about housing and family structure.  The Conservatives' social reform agenda will improve the nation's health.  Mr Lansley will be titled the Secretary of State for Public Health.
9. Have your say. There will be voice for patients as well as choice. A National Consumer Voice was outlined by Andrew Lansley after the Stafford healthcare disaster.
10. Spending secured. This "last but not least" commitment is one of two absolute Tory commitments on spending. As well as maintaining real terms increases in NHS spending the Conservatives have also promised to move to the target of 0.7% of national income being spent on international development.

Tim Montgomerie

Comments

[Freddy]

Lansley is the best shadow health secretary we've had since 1997.

[Pink Tory]

There is so much fat in the NHS budget. I understand the politics of maintaining funding but it will make the squeeze on other depts even harder.

[johnny come lately]

I just cannot understand why on this earth Lansley cannot promise to PRUNE the NHS of its over staffed administration AND especially the quango's!

As in most things this Government has created. It brought us
levels of 'quango's' behind which Ministers can hide when
things go wrong.

And, boy, once you enter the maze you become aware of the vast amount of money, which goes into
the National Health Service – for us the patients!- which is wasted on Quango's.

The National Institute for Clinical Excellence. The National
Research Ethics Service.The Care Quality Commission. The
National Patient Safety Agency. The NHS Information Centre.
MONITOR The Independent Regulator of NHS Foundation Trusts, The National Quality Board, The Healthcare Commission, Regional Strategic Health Authorities and the Trusts themselves.

All have offices, many quite palatial and expensive, and staff. They all have a Board with a
Chairman, Non Executive Directors and Chief Executives, who
do not come cheap in the NHS! And a full compliment of
Executive Directors.

When you consider the money that we pay into the National Health Service why on earth do we need so many organisations?

Why couldn't Lansley CALL TIME on these costly quango's?

The public want value for money. They have seen billions poured into the NHS over the past ten years and standards drop. Lansley is, in effect, saying MORE OF THE SAME.

I want a Government that brings in change for the better not just a change of face.

[Ad]

Talking of money saving. Just been on the BBC website to in all honesty listen to Pete Tong from last night and have seen the BBC's new investment. A "BBC election train" in India!

[Ross Warren]

" just cannot understand why on this earth Lansley cannot promise to PRUNE the NHS of its over staffed administration AND especially the quango's!"

Because Turkeys don't vote for christmas?
To me it seems a simply equation, the more that can be trimmed from the administration budgets the more there will be to improve treatments. To be fair to Lansley he has not indicated that there will be no cuts only that over all funding will be protected. I recall that D.C. said that Hospitals would be protected from cuts. There was no assurance that the big psychology departments would be protected. I cannot imagine that the NHS would continue with its top heavy admin departments under a Conservative government. This is another of those issues that cannot be resolved over night. Our most pressing task is to be rid of this Labour rabble, then and only then will we be in a position to lobby for sustained and meaningful reform of the NHS.

[Opinicus]

Surely its an acrostic rather than an acronym

Either way its an infantile method of thinking about health care reform

[James]

"I just cannot understand why on this earth Lansley cannot promise to PRUNE the NHS of its over staffed administration AND especially the quango's!"

...erm

Point Number 3: "Conservatives will dismantle bureaucracy..."

[Cleethorpes Rock]

If I'm ill, I want to get better. I want to get better as quickly and safely as possible. I don't care whether it's the NHS or AXA or BUPA who does the job.

I'd much rather we focussed on healthcare rather than The NHS, which Labour seem to have a genetic attachment to, probably more as a result of it being Nationalised than it being a Health Service.

[rcs]

Point number 3. Proper pyramidal, top to bottom management in layers that conforms to management structures almost every other major institution.

What we need is overall simplicity in management - sophisticated management by a few good managers rather than huge tiers of awful managers tying themselves into knots.

I would push for an "inspector general" of the NHS who has the power to arrive unanounced with a team of experienced doctors, nurses and managers who rigorously audit performance at the time and find out what everyone does.

This means experienced nurses and doctors going to A&E to see what actually happens. Experienced doctors go on ward rounds and out-patients and audit clinical standards and what actually happens to patients.

Managers go round asking the key question to everybody that they can discover:
"How does your job affect patient care?". How much does your activity cost? The answer should eliminate the encounter, harmonisation and outreach facilitators, communication and involvement specialists etc who would have to justify their jobs.

This would not simply a hatchet job but would also be very positive step in strengthening clinical and managerial standards.

[Anthony Scholefield]

A recent experience last week of seeing an eye consultant in the NHS and a private eye surgeon for the same problem.
In the NHS a nurse did eye tests and another nurse did dilation before seeing the eye surgeon. In the private sector,the eye surgeon did all the preliminaries himself.So one person did three persons jobs.
And why?
Because in the private sector if the surgeon had to employ two nurses he would have to pay for them out of his fee while in the NHS the cost of the the two nurses is borne by the taxpayer.
So the NHS is costly and in efficient because there is no pricing mechanism and it will always be so.

[Anthony Scholefield]

A recent experience last week of seeing an eye consultant in the NHS and a private eye surgeon for the same problem.
In the NHS a nurse did eye tests and another nurse did dilation before seeing the eye surgeon. In the private sector,the eye surgeon did all the preliminaries himself.So one person did three persons jobs.
And why?
Because in the private sector if the surgeon had to employ two nurses he would have to pay for them out of his fee while in the NHS the cost of the the two nurses is borne by the taxpayer.
So the NHS is costly and in efficient because there is no pricing mechanism and it will always be so.

[David Belchamber]

rcs at 21.44 said;

"Point number 3. Proper pyramidal, top to bottom management in layers that conforms to management structures almost every other major institution.

What we need is overall simplicity in management - sophisticated management by a few good managers rather than huge tiers of awful managers tying themselves into knots".

This chain of command works; why Labour hasn't realised that truth, I don't know.

It is in line with David Cameron's proposals to streamline things like the NHS, so that we get more for less. This is simple common sense. Huge amounts could be saved in NHS hospitals by doing exactly what rcs suggests. It might well be possible to freeze spending on the NHS, if these savings were then reinvested.

I only hope that Andrew Lansley or CCHQ have a look again at Gerry Robinson's work with Rotherham Hospital a couple of years ago. It was an eye opener and blew out of the water any claims that Labour could make about the efficiency of the NHS.

[rcs]

Johnny come lately has railed against Quangos.

I recently was involved in a vist by Monitor to the board of an NHS Foundation Trust. It was a jolly good meeting, nothing useful was said, nothing was done and we all went away feeling that we had had a "good meeting".

Again I push for a General Inspectorate of the NHS, composed by people who understand how hospitals work, that has the powers to audit hospitals at short notice.

[DR ROBIN JACKSON]

I have been a GP for nearly 30 years.Since 1997, I have seen the NHS that I knew and loved(especially with the marvellous GP Fundholding scheme) change to a soul-less quangocracy where patients are treated as little more than a means to achieving targets.If you are lucky, you still get excellent care.If you are the 92 year old lady that I tried to admit to hospital last night, you still face hours in A&E bofore you are attended to.We must be radical.We must take the State out of the NHS and, just like schools, devolve health care down to a local level.Having worked for many years before the imposition of PCTs and SHAs, I can safely say that these contribute not one jot to the smoother running of the service.If they were abolished tomorrow, no-one would notice, let alone care.

[Stephen Hoffman]

NO NO NO ! the NHS is intrinsically a badly run institution , have you noticed for example hardly anyone has copied it , there's a reason for that you know , they don't rant stalinist, expensive , inefficient , rationed , target obsessed top down healthcare.

we need to get radical , not reform the NHS abolish it, as reform have shown a social insurance system based on that of switzerland , would be fair , dynamic and efficient and less expensive than the NHS , everything the NHS isn't and never will be.