John Howell MP a friend a colleague of Nicholas Soames explains the Health and Social Care Bill in plain language.
John Howell MP writes:
The NHS is one of the things that makes this country great: healthcare for all, free at the point of use, unrelated to the ability to pay. And that’s the way it should stay. Like so many in this country, I have family and friends who would not be with us today if it had not been for the quality of the medical and nursing care they received and the dedication of the doctors and staff. So my commitment to the NHS is personal and deep-seated.
But let’s not look at the NHS through rose-tinted glasses. Although the NHS has been brilliant at so many things, we could still do better. If the NHS was performing at world class levels we could save an extra 5,000 lives from cancer every year.
It’s no use claiming to stand up for the values that underpin the NHS unless they can be made a reality. He may have been a Labour Minister; but Lord Darzi, himself an eminent surgeon, got it right. He said: “to believe in the NHS is to believe in its reform.” I agree.
The NHS needs reform because people are living longer and have the right to more complex new treatment and more choices about where to receive it. However, the cost of medicines has been rising by £600 million per year. Continuing as we are will put at risk the chances of our children inheriting an NHS which has in so many ways stood us in good stead. Despite the abysmal economic situation we inherited from Labour, we are investing £12.5 billion in the NHS over the next four years – that’s the equivalent of one in every seven pounds of public money. But, simply putting in more money without reform won’t meet the healthcare needs of this and subsequent generations.
So we are undertaking these reforms to make the NHS better and more sustainable so that we can ensure that it survives. And, we are also doing it so that, as a result, patients will have the best possible treatment and care for the long-term benefit of their health. So what are we doing? It boils down to four things.
First, we are making sure that patients get the best possible treatment. We are doing this by putting doctors and nurses, the people who best understand their patients, in charge of the NHS and by allowing patients to make informed choices about when and how they are treated. The new head of Oxfordshire’s new GP Clinical Commissioning group, Dr Stephen Richards (a GP from the Goring and Woodcote practice), has said: “through clinician-led commissioning we can champion the needs of the people of Oxfordshire and develop quality health services fit for the future.”[i] He’s not alone. From Barnet to Wigan there are already good examples of doctors in clinical commissioning groups delivering better care for their patients in the community.
Secondly, we are getting more money to the front line. One way we are doing that is by cutting bureaucracy. The reforms take out over 160 PCTs and Strategic Health Authorities and half of the statutory health quangos. Already we have over 15,000 fewer administrators and managers in the NHS than when we were elected. On the other side of the scales we have over 4,000 more doctors and the highest ever number of midwives. We’re taking power away from bureaucrats and putting it in the hands of the people best placed to use it – GPs.
Another way of doing this is by cutting waste. We will save some £5 billion being wasted in current administration budgets in this parliament. The NHS hasn’t just emerged from a golden age. Under the previous Government the private sector was paid £250 million for operations that never happened. Between 2008-2009 the number of NHS managers increased six times as fast as the number of nurses. £6.4 billion was wasted on the NHS supercomputer. And in a parody of a bad joke, under a Labour PFI contract it cost £333 to change a light switch.
Thirdly, we are making sure that there’s a better fit between health and social care bringing together health, hospitals, housing and social services care. We are doing this not by imposing a top-down diktat but by giving power to local boards focused on local health and well-being.
Let’s not be frightened of using competition to help achieve all this. It’s not a race to the bottom over price. It’s a race to the top on quality. It’s a means of giving greater choice to patients to get the high quality care they require.
Let’s not pretend either that the private sector and the NHS have to date simple passed each other by on the opposite sides of the street. Private companies and the NHS have worked hand-in-hand since 1948. Privatisation? Hardly. The Health Bill for the first time ever outlaws favouring the private sector over existing state health providers.
The Government, through these reforms, is committed to more money for the NHS, more freedoms for the NHS and a better future for the NHS. These commitments have my full support and I am proud to have been one of 40 Conservative MPs to have made this support public in a letter to the Sunday Telegraph this weekend. By supporting these reforms I am standing up for our NHS not just for you and me but for our children and the future.