Tories adopt a Janus-like approach to NHS‏

Andrew Lansley, Tory Health Secretary, yesterday gave a conference speech which faces both ways on the NHS. Of course if there was a genuine commitment to support the high quality healthcare delivered by the NHS it would be welcomed. The reality is that if you look closely at his speech it was littered with criticisms of what is widely seen as a world class healthcare system.

In supposedly giving support to it he then criticised health workers. Talking about a 4% drop in productivity, rise in infections, and lack of value. Let’s be clear anyone who works in the health service knows the level of commitment of healthcare workers, workloads are high, and quality is good.

Talking about people having to be pay £8,000 at the age of 65 to get insurance to provide care. To think that is affordable for the average NHS worker shows Lansley and the Tory Party as badly out of touch with reality.

The speech was about value, about service, about cutting services, cutting costs. It was not about continuing to improve healthcare, it was not about supporting committed health workers, it was not about continuing to improve quality.

Let’s not be fooled the NHS is not safe in their hands – we must expose the truth of the Tory pro-market anti-public service agenda.
http://www.conservatives.com/News/Speeches/2009/09/Andrew_Lansley_Our_chance_to_make_the_NHS_the_finest_in_the_world.aspx