As the general election campaign gets underway, Theresa Villiers, Conservative Parliamentary Candidate for Chipping Barnet has posted the following article setting out her views on some key issues relating to health services and the NHS:
I am a strong supporter of the NHS. I successfully campaigned for a major expansion of maternity, children’s and A&E services at Barnet Hospital. I also worked hard to get Brunswick Park Health Centre re-opened and I am doing the same for East Barnet Health Centre.
When the Conservatives took office as part of the Coalition Government, we took two big strategic decisions about the health service: to increase funding; and cut bureaucracy. We have only been able to invest in our NHS because we have a growing economy to pay for it.
Without a long-term plan for the economy, you can’t have a plan for the future of the NHS. Many countries which have not tackled their deficit have had to cut spending on healthcare. For example there have been cuts of 17% in Portugal and 14% in Greece.
Conservative support for the NHS
Because of a strong economy the NHS Budget will go up by around £12.9bn in cash terms over this parliament and we have committed an additional £2bn next year as a down-payment on the NHS’s Five Year Forward View plan.
A future Conservative Government will protect the NHS by ensuring that spending rises in every year in real-terms.
The UK has recently been ranked as having the top health system in the world by the Commonwealth Fund. Some key statistics about the NHS and the record of the Conservatives in Government include:
- Over 9 million more operations in this Parliament than the last.
- Fewer patients are waiting more than 26 and 52 weeks to start treatment than under Labour.
- Nearly 22,000 extra clinical staff, including more than 9,500 doctors and 6,900 nurses have been added on our wards since 2010, with more doctors, nurses, midwives and health visitors being employed in the NHS than ever before.
- Over 4,000 additional health visitors and 1,000 student health visitors have been in training since last September.
- Almost 20,000 fewer administrators, including almost 7,000 fewer managers than in May 2010
- Mixed sex accommodation is down by 98%
- Numbers of MRSA bloodstream infections and C. difficile infections are at record lows
- Over 67,000 people have benefitted from the cancer drugs fund with budget increased to £340 million a year
- 3.6 million more diagnostic tests and more admissions for elective treatment
- 6.1 million more out-patient cases and 1.1 million more in-patient admissions.
- Over 1.3 million more people have accessed an NHS dentist.
- 35,000 more people treated for cancer last year than in the final year of the last government and a 51% increase in referrals.
- Dementia diagnosis rate up by 10% as we launch new research funding and are leading the world in combatting the disease and making our society dementia-ready.
- Since 2010 the number of people entering into talking therapies for mental health conditions has doubled.
The NHS is not being privatised
I support NHS principles that care should be free at the point of use and based on need not ability to pay. There is a great deal of myth and misinformation circulated about the NHS and private sector provision. The NHS is not being privatised.
Independent providers made up 5% of the NHS under Labour and now around 6%. Spending on private providers for general and acute secondary care increased by twice as much under Labour as it has done under the coalition.
Our Health and Social Care Act means that ministers cannot interfere to artificially drive up private sector involvement in the NHS as they did under Labour. Labour were prepared to pay private sector providers 11% more than NHS providers, but we have made this illegal.
Labour’s scaremongering about privatisation has been discredited by just about every independent expert, including by the King’s Fund as a “myth” and Labour’s claims as “exaggerated”. Labour don’t have a long term plan for the economy, putting the whole NHS budget at risk. Labour’s health plan has been criticised by a succession of senior Labour figures like Ara Darzi and Alan Milburn. Ed Miliband's attempt to “weaponise” the NHS for political purposes is both cynical and worrying.