Liberal Democrats A Clean Bill of Health Health Policies Restoring the Nation's Health The NHS has been squeezed between rising demand and government under funding and disrupted by repeated changes in government policy. Morale amongst NHS professionals is falling, and bureaucracy has grown at the expense of front-line patient care, while numbers of nurses and hospital beds have fallen. Liberal Democrat health policy puts people first. Quality of outcomes, equity of access and speed of treatment are the patient's highest priorities and they are ours too. We are deeply committed to the principles of the National Health Service and commit ourselves to raising the share of GDP spent on the NHS to at least average EU levels. We would maintain the NHS as a comprehensive service, free at the point of need and funded primarily from general taxation. We would immediately tackle the crisis in the hospital sector and make the NHS more accountable. Health policy should be about more than NHS policy and practices. It must be about preventing illness, not just treating it. As such the integration of other policy areas is vital, for example better housing, health education and tackling environmental pollution. Guaranteeing Benefits to Patients We would: * Establish National Health Service Care Guarantees covering every major medical condition, which would set down the minimum standards of care that patients should expect. The Secretary of State would draw these up, but with an obligation to consult with patient groups, health professional bodies, and expert external verifiers. Elected regional governments would also help draw up regional variations on the NHSCGs to take account of regional conditions. * Improve standards and promote patients' interests. We would enhance the resources of the National Institute of Clinical Excellence, which evaluates the effectiveness of medical treatments. This would allow it to do more work on existing treatments, rather than concentrating on new ones as at present. Building on the Best of the NHS We would: * Focus extra investment in NHS staffing, treatment of cancer and cardiovascular diseases, mental health, public health, dental services, and long-term care. * Introduce both a generic prescribing target of 80% and management of the prescriptions system, using savings to tackle to postcode lottery. We will also aim to scrap prescription charges. * End charging for 'personal care' as defined by the recent Royal Commission report, and giving this a high priority for resources. * Establish a National Care Commission to monitor care for older people, perform an adovcacy role for the consumer, and encourage innovation and service improvement. * Cut waiting times. We would replace the current system of waiting lists with a diary system giving priority to clinical factors. Our aim is that we should, in time, guarantee that no patient will be on a waiting list having to wait for more than 6 months for treatment. We would seek to achieve this target within 3 years and set shorter maximum waiting times for more urgent treatment. * Improve the quality of care and raise morale. We would increase the number of medical students and recruit, train and retain more professional staff. We would immediately recruit extra nurses, doctors and health professionals above existing Government plans. We would ban the use of 'gagging clauses' in employment contracts, which prevent professional staff from speaking out against unsafe standards and investigate a no-fault compensation policy for the NHS. * Rebuild NHS Dentistry, with the first priority being to widen access to those most in need. Promoting Good Health We would: * Make prevention a priority. We would immediately abolish charges for eye and dental check-ups paid for by increasing duty by 10p on a packet of 20 cigarettes. * Improve preventive heath provision for women. It is unacceptable that women have to wait nine weeks or more for the results of smear tests. We would extend invitations for breast screening to women over 65 and consider the case for reducing the qualifying age to 45. * Encourage people to take more responsibility for their own health. We would improve health education and promote healthy living. We would completely ban tobacco advertising and promotion and increase the duty on tobacco products. We would make the Health Education Authority truly independent and free to criticise government policy. * Put health promotion at the heart of government policy. We would require all departments to assess the impact of their policies on health. Each year, there would be an independent report, which would be published and debated in Parliament, on the state of the nation's health. Bringing Health Services Closer to People We support: * Enabling citizens to play a part in setting health policies in their area. We would break down the barriers that artificially divide health and social care and encourage the services to work more closely together through inter-agency Health Improvement Plans and pooled budgets. We would widen the composition of Primary Care Trusts, for example to bring in patient and local social services authority representation. We would strengthen the democratic principle in health by making Primary Care Trusts more accountable to democratic Local Government, and by merging NHS Regional Executives with democratic Regional Government in the English Regions. * Giving local people a stronger voice on NHS trusts. We would end the right of the Secretary of State for Health to appoint members of NHS Trusts. We would maximise accountability in the NHS by advertising all vacancies in NHS Trusts and making appointments contestable by local people. We would open up meetings of NHS Trust boards to the public and press, and give local people, staff and professionals speaking rights. Policies stated in this briefing represent policy passed by the conference of the Liberal Democrats. A fully costed manifesto containing our priorities for government is published at each general election. This is a summary of Policy Paper 14, Building on the Best of the NHS, the Health section of Policy Review Paper Moving Ahead - Towards a Citizens' Britain, and Policy Paper 36 A Clean Bill of Health. February 2001 Produced by the Policy Unit. Printed by Liberal Democrats, 4 Cowley Street, London SW1P 3NB Published and Promoted by Chris Rennard, 4 Cowley Street, London SW1P 3NB A Clean Bill of Health