Whoever wins the election will have to make some very tough choices about health spending as the nations economic recovery remains fragile and steps will need to be made to reduce the nation’s debt.
Students, like all other citizens, rely on the health services so what are the parties promising to do?
Conservatives
Increase health spending in real terms over a parliament; replace ’process’ targets, such as maximum time before seeing a cancer specialist, with ’outcome’ targets, such as number of people dying from cancer; more management freedom for NHS providers; put performance data online; allow patients to choose any healthcare provider that meets NHS standards; implement a ’payment for results’ system throughout NHS; link GPs’ pay to results; cut the cost of NHS administration by a third; create an independent NHS board; end mixed-sex wards; increase the number of single rooms in hospitals; allow retirees to protect their homes from being sold to fund residential care costs by paying a one-off premium of £8,000 at retirement.
Labour
Protect frontline NHS from spending cuts; ensure all people who suspect they have cancer get test results within one week; guarantee cancer patients will see a specialist within two weeks of diagnosis; offer everyone between 40 and 74 free, five-yearly NHS health check; guarantee NHS patients the right to wait no longer than 18 weeks from the moment of GP referral to hospital treatment; establish a "National Care Service" for elderly and vulnerable people, with funding arrangements decided by a Commission; provide free personal care indefinitely for those in highest need; meet elderly people’s care costs after they have spent two years in residential care.
Liberal Democrats
Replace Strategic Health Authorities with democratically elected local health boards with power to prevent hospital closures; reduce number of health targets; introduce "patient contracts" specifying what patients can expect from NHS; make it easier to switch GP; allow patients to register at more than one practice; reform NHS dental contracts to encourage dentists back into the NHS; extend access to end-of-life services and hospices; more cost-effective purchasing of drugs, including greater use of generic drugs; payments for over-65s who require personal care such as help with dressing based on need, not ability to pay.
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