Government Confused Over NHS

12.00.00pm BST (GMT +0100) Thu 5th Jun 2008

Graham Oakes, Lib Dem PPC for Exeter and a Nurse has criticised the Government, describing it as being in a "confused state over health policy"

"Labour has spent large amounts of money on the NHS but are failing to achieve positive outcomes in key areas. They have failed to provide an adequate service for older people, underinvested in health screening and wasted many millions of pounds on a series of reorganisations."

"The government are keen to portray themselves as caring about older people but the reality is that they have failed to protect vulnerable adults, they have chosen to restrict the supply of drugs to tackle dementia, under-funded councils who provide vital services for those people most at risk and still force people to sell their homes to pay for care."

"When the NHS was devised by the Liberal, William Beveridge in 1942, he identified that by improving the nation's health we could largely eliminate sickness. The key to that was through screening, but this Government has failed to keep up with the opportunities modern medical research has created. The obvious way to expand health screening was to use the network of community hospitals, however the Government had already closed many of these. There latest idea is to create polyclinics, large GP surgeries with screening and minor operation facilities attached. Why didn't they protect the community hospitals in the first place? Evidence from as long ago as the 1960's clearly shows people get better quicker if they are nearer where they live, yet they closed local hospitals and look to centralise services."

"If the Government had spent the money that it wasted on building new offices each time it reorganised health administration and on thousands of expensive redundancies, that money would have built a network of modern community hospitals and there would have been no need for poly clinics."

"Labour have tried hard to improve the NHS but have failed. They believe the answer lies in targets and legislation - they need to start listening to people who work in and use our health service."