Reform the NHS

I share the concern of Anne Berry (BFP 26/2/10) over the issue of meals in our hospitals and the lack of understanding of the basic care needed by patients in terms of nutrition and cleaning patients. It is not simply a matter of targets and cost cutting. Surprisingly we seem to have fallen victim to our own success in training nurses to the very highest standards. Our University Hospitals simply teach us our nurses to be the best!

Why should that be a problem?

Well if we paid them as the best then it would be less of a problem, but we don't. So many nurses when they complete their mandatory period in UK hospitals leave for the USA, Australia, or the Middle East where their skills are appreciated and rewarded. We make up our own hospitals with migrant doctors and nurses eager to attain the accolade of 'British trained' and happy to accept the lower wage for a period of time, before returning to their own country, and despite the assurances of management there are language problems

But that is only one aspect of the problem we have created. It seems from the discussions that I have had with senior nurses that they are concerned that many of our highly skilled nurses coming out of the University Hospitals consider that they far above such basic care as cleaning and feeding. There was a time when locally trained nurses found that such basic care was the core of their early training, and hospitals always had a core of trainee nurses to provide this basic care. Not anymore.

So now we read horror stories of patients dying of starvation; of infections being incurred in hospital; and the tragedy of Mid-Stafford where it seems management's desire to please Whitehall led to a catastrophic failure of care.

It is not good enough for politicians to promise to ring fence NHS spending, to promise to protect it as it is. What meaning is it to promise change and then say no change in the Health Service?

What would the Liberal Democrats do? Well we could halve the size of the Department of Health over the term of the next Parliament. Is this practical? Well we would set a rule that no more than one organisation can ask the same question to a hospital or any other health trust. This would drastically reduce costs across the NHS and we will halve the amount the Department of Health spends on advertising, publishing and public relations.

We will cut the total amount spent on health quangos by 1/3rd and cap chief executive pay so that no one earns more than the Prime Minister. We will abolish Strategic Health Authorities and allow local NHS Trusts within a region will act together to commission tertiary services. We will cut the amount PCT's spend on management and administration by 1/3rd. We will reform incentive payments to health boards and GP's, linking them more directly to prevention measures.

Finally we will integrate health and social care to give a seamless service, ending bureaucratic barriers, and saving money to allow people to stay in their homes for longer rather than going into hospital or long-term residential care.

Positive measures that will not interfere with the excellent front line care we get from our hospitals.

Cllr David Chappell

Lib Dem PPC for Bury St Edmunds