Quality | 2009.08.20
Cameron to take on Tory right over NHS
Conservative leader to pledge real-terms increases in NHS spending in attempt to regain initiative on health after Daniel Hannan row
David Cameron will tomorrow face down the Tory right when he pledges to deliver real-terms increases in NHS spending and casts the Conservatives as the party best placed to intensify Labour\'s "good" reforms.
In an attempt to regain the initiative on health after Tory MEP Daniel Hannan dismissed the NHS as a "60-year mistake" on US television, Cameron will disregard calls from the right for a freeze in spending as a step backwards.
Cameron, who was alarmed by Hannan\'s intervention during last week\'s transatlantic row over health reform, will say that only the Tories are offering the NHS a funding guarantee.
"Spending on the NHS cannot stand still, because standing still would be taking a step backwards," Cameron will say in a speech in the north-west of England before visiting an NHS hospital. "That is why we have pledged real-terms increases in NHS spending – unlike Labour – a fact which, to put it mildly, takes the wind out of their point-scoring sails."
Cameron has pledged that spending on the NHS will at least rise in line with inflation from 2011-14 if the Tories win the next election. But he will add that spending alone cannot protect the NHS; it will need an intensification of reforms to cope with an ageing population. In an attempt to calm the political atmosphere after ministers questioned the Tories\' commitment to the NHS, Cameron will praise Labour\'s reforms over the past decade, but say ministers have run out of ideas.
"I don\'t want to be unfair in my criticisms of Labour," he will say. "They have the best intentions, and they have done some good with the NHS. But they and their reforms have come to the end of the line.
"Our health service is crying out for the next stage of change. I believe we have shown that we are the ones to bring about that change, and that we have earned the right to call ourselves the party of the NHS today. We believe in the NHS. We understand the pressures it faces."
Cameron will say that Tory reforms will focus on making the supply of healthcare more efficient and reducing demand for the NHS through more preventive care.
"The gap between what we will have to do and what we can afford to do presents an urgent need for reform," he will say. "The power of competition – the opening up of the NHS to new providers – will bring innovation and investment. And the power of choice – the ability for people to control what service they get – will lead to better quality care. These reforms will create a more user-friendly and efficient NHS that both meets patient expectations and restores professional responsibility."
Cameron\'s speech follows a bruising week for the Tories after the US row over Barack Obama\'s healthcare reforms moved across the Atlantic. Hannan told Fox News that the US should reject an NHS-style model of universal state provision.
"Because you\'re our friends, and if you see a friend about to make a terrible mistake you try to warn him," he said. "We have lived through this mistake for 60 years now."
Andy Burnham, the health secretary, wrote in the Guardian this week that Cameron\'s "bland protestations of love" for the NHS hide an approach that would threaten the improvement in health standards for the poor since Labour started to increase spending in the early part of this decade.
For more information, please visit
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/aug/19/conservatives-nhs-funding
