THE
GOVERNMENT WILL
REBUILD THE
NHS AND IMPROVE
THE DELIVERY
OF SOCIAL
SERVICES BY:
— increasing NHS funding by an average
of 4.7 per cent a year, above inflation, for three years, to develop
modern, prompt and convenient health care services;
— modernising the NHS, by improving
hospitals and GPs' premises, and by establishing NHS Direct, to
give everyone access to a 24 hour telephone nurse advice line;
and
— improving the efficiency of the NHS
and social services by up to 3 per cent a year;
THESE REFORMS
WILL, BY
THE END
OF THE
PARLIAMENT:
— reduce NHS waiting lists to 100,000
below the level the Government inherited;
— begin to reduce avoidable illness,
disease and injury, which will result in time in lower death rates
from heart disease and stroke, cancer, and suicide, and cutting
health inequalities;
— improve cooperation between the NHS,
social services and other services which will strengthen the focus
on patients' needs, and help to reduce the rate of growth in emergency
admissions to an average of 3 per cent a year over the next five
years for people over 75; and
— improve the educational achievement
of children looked after by local authorities, increasing from
25 per cent to at least 50 per cent the proportion of children
leaving care at 16 or later with GCSE or GNVQ qualifications.
A new approach to investment in Health
7.1 The Government set out its ten year
programme to rebuild the NHS in the White Paper The New NHS
and the Green Paper Our Healthier Nation. The Government's
vision is of a modernised NHS that is:
— of a uniformly high standard;
— designed around the needs of patients
not of institutions;
— efficient, so that every pound is
spent to maximise the care for patients;
— making good use of modern technology
and know-how; and
— tackling the causes of ill health
as well as its treatment.
7.2 The Government is abolishing the destructive,
bureaucratic competition of the internal market, and replacing
it with a fairer, more collaborative system. It will be based
on partnership and driven by performance. All local health bodies
will come together to draw up the Health Improvement Programme,
working out how best to use their resources to improve the health
and well being of people in their area, cutting health inequalities,
and increasing the length of people's lives and the number of
years they spend free from illness. GPs and nurses, the people
closest to patients, will increasingly take the lead in commissioning
services.
Spending plans
7.3 The new spending plans for England provide
for average real increases of 4.7 per cent, in real terms, over
the next three years. In the first year, resources for the NHS
rise by 5.7 per cent in real terms, followed by increases of 4.5
per cent and 3.9 per cent in the later years. In addition, savings
on bureaucracy are generating £1 billion extra for patient
care over the Parliament, and wider value-for-money savings from
the CSR will produce about an extra £1 billion each year.
