Take politics out of the NHS

Patients and public should have real say over local NHS

Currently St Albans residents are being encouraged to take part in yet another consultation about the future of local NHS services. But the next Conservative Government has pledged to listen to concerns over the constant political interference in the NHS and will give patients and the public real influence over local services.

The key message from the Conservatives' new policy paper on the NHS calls for:

• Democratically-elected local councils to be consulted before any attempts to downgrade or close local NHS services, and ensure that councils are asked about their views on the future priorities of the local NHS.
• Ruling out any more pointless reorganisations of NHS services.
• Linking GPs' salaries to the success of the treatments they deliver, whilst scrapping the targets imposed by politicians in Whitehall which distort doctors' clinical decisions.
• Giving doctors and nurses a far bigger say in how budgets are spent.
• Local people to be directly involved in helping run local NHS services, by allowing them to become members of the NHS Trusts which provide local NHS services.
• Giving patients much greater choice over the care they receive, and providing new league tables showing which hospitals and surgeries perform the best, and more information on the prevalence of hospital superbugs.
• Creating a new, national watchdog consumer voice for patients - 'HealthWatch'.

Anne said:

"When David Cameron visited St Albans in May he talked to our local health workers. He was well made well aware of how fed-up the staff and the public are with the problems dogging our local NHS services.

"I know the public are fed up with being consulted and then ignored. Conservatives are putting forward real, concrete solutions to our problems.

"All Gordon Brown talks about is the fact he has raised taxes to European levels, but we have not seen anywhere near the improvement in our NHS services which this extra money should justify. Our aim is more ambitious: using these levels of funding, we want to deliver to patients an NHS which is the best healthcare system in Europe.

"Since 1997 the nine reorganisations of the NHS have cost an estimated £3bn so it is no wonder hard-working health professionals are demoralised. I have been fighting to get further and better services for St Albans - how far could have £3bn could have gone in areas like mine, struggling with a huge financial burden?

"It is time to end political meddling in the NHS and start to trust the professionals.""