Kennedy pledges to tackle ‘hidden waiting lists’
Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy, has pledged to tackle “hidden waiting lists” and deliver good, local healthcare if his party is elected at the next general election.
Preparing the ground for the official launch of the Liberal Democrat’s election campaign, Mr Kennedy stressed that, unlike Labour and the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats would not present policies promoting “false choices”, or reducing people from patients to consumers.
He said: “A well managed national health service should not be about resorting to shipping people around the country in search of a free hospital bed. It should be about making sure that your local hospital is top class, never mind the one fifty miles away.”
Mr Kennedy pledged that the Liberal Democrats would tackle the “hidden waiting lists” ignored by Government, if they were voted into power. The Government had refused to measure how long patients waited before they were diagnosed, Mr Kennedy said, which meant some faced up to a year just waiting to find out what was wrong with them.
This was symptomatic of an NHS culture driven by targets, not by what was best for patients. Mr Kennedy said: “As one Primary Care Trust chief executive, quoted in the Health Service Journal said bluntly ‘Our money goes on things we have targets for.'”
He accused Labour of “institutional statism” that left them unable to relinquish tight control over GPs surgeries and local hospitals.
Strategic Health Authorities would be abolished and the number of arms’ length bodies that inspect and monitor NHS organisations reduced, he continued. And the money saved from cutting down on bureaucracy would be ploughed back into frontline care.
Mr Kennedy warned that the Conservatives did not really believe in the NHS’ founding principles of universal healthcare, and would simply seek to privatise as much of the health service as was possible.
He said: “Subsidising private operations for those who can already afford them is a policy for the few. And before delivering a single extra operation it would drain billions of pounds out of the NHS.”
In contrast, the Lib Dems would bring in free personal care for the elderly, free dental checks and eye tests.
Mr Kennedy said: “Our campaign will be about providing a quality health service closer to home.”
