Labour’s misinformation on the NHS

It is all well and good Harlow Labour demonstrating about the NHS, with their protest in Harlow at the weekend, but under Gordon Brown and Tony Blair we had 16 Health Acts and nine reorganisations.

They scrapped GP fundholding - then they tried to bring it back; they abolished the internal market, then they brought it back and health authorities were abolished under Labour, then brought back again.

Morale was sapped and money wasted, and deficits in Harlow's local NHS were at record levels. Residents won't forget the £700,000 deficit in our local NHS Walk-In centre for example. People will remember that Labour wasted £6 billion on an NHS computer that didn't work - £100 wasted for every Harlow taxpayer -, and signed up to contracts where it cost £300 to change a lightbulb.

By contrast, the NHS reforms that are proposed by the Liberal and Conservative Government is not about reorganising the bureaucracy – it is about scrapping it.

The extra investment and reform (both of which are opposed by Labour) have led to 100,000 more patients treated every month. Britain now has 4,000 extra doctors and 4,000 fewer managers; more clincal staff; and the number of people in mixed-sex wards is down by 94 per cent.

Waiting lists are down to their lowest ever levels. The number of people on long-term waiting lists has also hit record lows.

The Coalition Government's reforms are about stopping the waste, and putting our GPs and hospitals like Princess Alexandra Hospital in the driving seat.

Altogether, a total of £4.5 billion is being taken out of bureaucracy and ploughed back into frontline patient care. There is a one-off cost, yes. But it is worth it. We have to invest now to get savings later.

In the East of England alone, scrapping the Strategic Health Authority will save at least £45 million a year, in lower management and administrative costs. This means at least £700,000 more in Harlow to invest in more nurses and doctors.

 

There is a Cancer Drugs Fund of £200 million a year to help cancer patients get greater access to cancer drugs that their doctors recommend for them. Mystifyingly, this is opposed by Labour.

These reforms mean more doctors, more nurses, more money for cancer patients, lower waiting times, less bureaucrats, and an extra £24 million that has been invested into Harlow's NHS, since2010. All of this is opposed by Labour.

Without some of my childhood spend in Great Ormond Street hospital, I probably would not have been able to walk. I know the value of an NHS and believe in a health service which is free at the point of use, and is funded through taxation.

 People deserve the best possible healthcare - especially the sick, the young, and the elderly.