WHILE snipers on the left are right to be suspicious, there is no doubt that an extra -2 billion in the comine financial vear is a major change of policy from the govern. ment - and as such a victory for campaigners ano the wider pubic Indeed after years in which sloppy rhetoric from ill-informed leftists has increasingly dismissed the NHS as having already been "privatised" or already "collapsed, Gordon Brown's announcement is a testimony to its resilience - and the political strength of a tax-funded service, free at point of use The service which survived even Margaret Thatcher - who conducted a "review" in 1988 at her peak of power. but decided gainst any substantial privatisation, anc alled to senerate signilicant support for or vate medical insurance - now appears to have beaten back the more radical of New Labour's "modernisers"
Both Blair and Brown have felt forced to endorse the decidedly "old Labour" of the NHS.
Blair's responses to William Hague interestingly dropped his usual polite use of the Conservatives, as he reminded MPs that "The Tories opposed the formation of the health service, and now they oppose the plan to modernise and reform le." And Blair sounded even more old Labour in his electon of private insurance as ary solu tion and his conclusion that:
"What [Hague) has done today is put himself outside the consensus in the country that recognises that, yes, the health service reform and change. We, the party that created the health service, will now work with people in the health service to rebuild it.
By finding the extra cash to pump into its revival. Gordon Brown has also refuted those on the right who claimed it could only be afforded through massive increases in Ministers were clearty becoming increas. ingly isolated in their ridiculous claims that the Iris nad been given surticent resources to cope. and eventually on the Frost programme in January Blair himse! was the first to go "off message"
He admitted publicly that the hesith ser vice was under-funded, and declared a commitment to increase levels of spending towards the European average.
P/H to can trave & second opinion -I'm the only coctor letr NEWS THAT 160,000 people last year paid ordered?
•model AFTER two years of frustration among health workers and campaigners seeking in vain for the "extra" £21 billion promised in 1998 time the new money is real. But there are strings attached, and many questions still to be answered on how it will be spent, reports JOHN LISTER.
M Brown ripped up his discredited comprehensive spending plans to squeeze NHS spending for another year, and brought in increases in spending that will significantly raise the share of allocated health, from around 6.9% now to 7.6% in 2003/4. New credibility among front-line NHS staff had plummeted as it became clear that the "C21billion" increase -of Tory cash limits upheld by Brown - was a deliberately misOTROSOn. They knew it bore no relation to the actual provision of cash the five year NURSES!
develop NES nursing homes.
• LHE has also urged a major investment in staff, to ensure the NHS can recruit, train and retain the teams of professionals and support staff it needs to keep services going: the Rescue Plan sugbillion equivalent to €1,000 extra per rear for cach NHS employe • While services have beer squeezed by revenue cash limits, the NHS is set to haemorrhage millions OPCE years in lease payments to private consortia of banks and building firms who are building most of the new wave of hospitals under the Private Finance Initiative. tac bere Rescuc Plan callea lon 'FI to be scrapped, and instead or the pool of NHS capital to b of increased, alongside a boost for investment in NHS buildings.
• All this, and the abolition of prescription charges and Charges for eye and dental checks could all be afforded for around £4 billion extra on the Nis budget Under Gordon Brown's new settlement this would still leave plenty of scope for investment in extra consultants and specialists, new technology, concerted drives to tackle coronary heart discase, cancer, kidney laslure and other maior killers. improved drugs for mental illness and other conditions, improved premises for primary care in the inner cities. CHIL But this is where the problems are likely to start.
The government has been Plan" described as *hooked on targets", and Tony Blair's pledge o take personal charge of a new NHS will strike a chill into the hearts of many health workers.
The last thing the NHS needs is a new proliferation "task forces" targets and hitsquads to add to the plethora of rol-au-vent shops that have been launched at local and national level since AlCas Hospital staff will know from years of that the setting of "targets" invariably