Cut the...
- 9 Oct 06, 11:56 AM
Just on my way to hear David Cameron talk about his favourite three letters - NHS. The Tories are stepping up their campaign against Brown's "cuts" in the health service. Labour is responding by alleging that the Tory policy for the NHS is "cuts, cuts, cuts", since Cameron is pledged to "cut" 拢17 billion from public services.
Good grief. Can we just get a few facts straight before this rhetoric of slash and burn gets out of control?
This government is on course to have trebled NHS spending since coming to power. The deficit in the NHS is small - the equivalent of someone with an income of 拢20,000 overspending by 拢160 in the course of a year. The "cuts" the Tories talk of are - usually - posts being cut and not staff. They stem from the failure of certain hospitals to control their spending and the decision of central government to try to resolve this in a single year. In other words this is an issue of management not total resources. Clearly, if it's your post going or it's happening in your hospital it will feel like a cut but these are not "cuts" as we have known them.
The last Tory government also increased health spending in real terms - albeit though at a significantly lower rate. The Conservative health spokesman, Andrew Lansley, now says he regrets the fact that the rate of increase slowed in the last few years of the Major government and believes that Labour were right to increase NHS spending. The Tories have committed themselves to real terms increases in NHS resources and are likely to match whatever Gordon Brown announces in this summer's spending review. By promising to "share the proceeeds of growth between public spending and tax cuts" they will need to convince people that they can grow the economy faster than Labour, or find savings in new places. In any event, there's no evidence they're committed to NHS cuts.
Why am I challenging both main parties' propaganda? Because it does nothing to aid public understanding. All politicians know that there are forces at work which have nothing to do with cash spent but which will dramatically alter our hospital provision - moves towards specialisation, reductions in the time patients need to stay in hospital, changes in approach to Accident and Emergency.
Is it too much to ask that this should be discussed above and beyond the talk of "cuts"? Probably, but here's hoping...
