Over at The Guardian’s Comment Is Free site, Lib Dem shadow health secretary Norman Lamb argues that instead of slashing NHS budgets, we can get smarter services by devolving power to patients and professionals. Here’s an excerpt:
Opinion polls suggest that satisfaction with NHS has never been higher. The challenge facing all political parties is to sustain that support in an era of reduced public spending. The NHS is facing a perfect storm of rising costs due to our ageing population, a range of lifestyle conditions and a constant flow of expensive new treatments, but there will be no significant new money, whoever wins the election. The consequences of this could be disastrous. The last time the NHS faced a financial challenge, all the wrong things were cut such as public health programmes and mental health services, hitting the most vulnerable the hardest.
This time, the position could be far worse. But we do have a choice. We can either choose crisis management, slashing services, or we can rise to the challenge and redesign the way the NHS operates in order to secure more efficient use of resources and better care.
We currently spend about £110bn on the NHS. We know that the money could be spent more wisely. For those of us who believe passionately in the NHS, we have to demonstrate how it can work better. The paper I have published today, The NHS: a liberal blueprint, seeks to map out a way of achieving this goal.
You can read Norman’s article in full here.
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