General Election – Healthcare

The NHS is Britain’s pride and joy, but our healthcare system is creaking majorly in the face of overload and drastic cuts to its funding. The major parties have far more focus on this than their smaller counterparts, so the Green Party and UKIP aren’t covered here.  

Conservatives

• Introduction of 10,000 new mental health professionals
• Means-testing of ‘at-home’ care
• New GP contract forced through

The Conservative manifesto opens with its reaffirmed commitment to the childhood obesity plan that it announced last year, which attempts to reduce obesity drastiocally over the next 10 years.

The Tories have also announced that they would replace the 1983 Mental Health Act with a new bill which would recruit 10,000 more mental health staff and place mental health on a par with physical health for the first time.

However, the Tories have said they will start means testing ‘at-home’ care, which means that more people will have to pay for their assistance within their own houses. They’ve committed to raising NHS spending by ‘£8bn in real terms’ by 2022, but it’s not clear how they’re funding this or how much of the money is newly promised.

May’s Conservatives will also continue the £22billion cuts programme that was implemented by the last Conservative government, and have also said they will introduce a new GP contract. It is unknown yet whether this will come up against a similar opposition to the Junior Doctor Contract that was forced through by Jeremy Hunt last year.

Labour

• £6 billion for the NHS from tax on top earners
• Hospital cuts programme halted and reversed
• Reversing of privatisation of NHS

Jeremy Corbyn has made the NHS one of the centrepieces of his campaign, and has said it will commit to spending an extra £37 billion on the NHS system over the next five years if Labour wins the election, including £10 billion on upgrading IT systems and facilities.

A tax on top earners would fund the majority of this investment. There is also a pledge to tackle child obesity through a new bill which would include the banning adverts for junk food and sweets before 9pm. The bill aims to halve child obesity within 10 years.

Labour want to ring-fence budgets for public health services and suspend closures of hospitals across the country, as well as scrapping the 1% current limit on pay rises for NHS workers.

The party would also scrap car parking charges at NHS Hospitals across the country, funded by raising taxes on private healthcare.

Liberal Democrats

• £6 billion for NHS from a 1p income tax rise
• Public sector pay freeze ended for NHS workers
• Ban TV ads for junk food before 9pm

The Liberal Democrat manifesto lays out reasonably similar aims to that of their Labour counterparts, giving the NHS a massive funding boost, although their funding source is a 1p income tax rise rather than a raid on the top 5% of earners.

They too, have pledged to scrap the limit on pay rises for NHS professionals and will set out new waiting room standards in A&E to address the issues which have plagued emergency rooms across the country over the last few years.

The Liberal Democrats also want the full legalisation of cannabis, regulating the market to provide government revenue as well as claiming that it improves public health in general and takes pressure off the criminal justice system.