It is time for a radical reconsideration of the public and private sectors, says Joan Awbery
Although Labour has been returned to Government with an historic landslide, it cannot afford to be complacent. Pre-election polls showed that people 'felt let down' by the health service and the Government would be wise to remember that only one in four of the electorate turned out to vote. If Labour is to fulfill its health care promises and meet expectations, a closer partnership between the public and private sectors needs to be forged.
The fact that the Government acknowledges how much is to be done is encouraging. Throughout their campaign they promised 'a radical second term' in which they would end bureaucracy and transfer power to front line services. It has also stated it will call on the private sector where waiting list times are excessive. Labour claims it has recruited 7,000 more doctors and 17,000 more nurses and there is no doubt that under Labour the NHS has seen the biggest increase in spending since it was launched ' a one-third increase in real terms over the last five years.
According to British Medical Association (BMA) figures, only 113 new GPs were recruited last year and many doctors are threatening to resign because of increasing workloads and staff shortages. Alan Milburn faces an ongoing battle with consultants about the time they must devote to NHS work. Despite the 10-year plan announced last year to modernise, we will still lag behind our European counterparts in terms of average expenditure by 2006.
When the NHS was launched in 1948, it was envisaged it would take care of people from the cradle to the grave. But NHS funding is not a bottomless pit. The treatments and procedures that are the norm today were not even dreamt of in the 1940s when the foundations of the system were laid. Heart by-pass and transplants are performed routinely today and innovative surgical equipment is expensive. And what of the future ' what new healthcare developments are yet to come and how much of a further drain will they be on NHS resources?
Public expectations of healthcare are growing faster than our ability to pay for them. A recent report from the Patients Support Group Diabetes UK estimated an increasing number of diabetes sufferers could swallow up to one-fifth of the health budget by 2010. What does this one projection alone mean for the Prime Minister's promise to bring health spending up to European standards within five years? One can only speculate on the substantial increases in taxation needed to meet this objective and wonder if Tony Blair's calculations took into account medical inflation.
It is time for radical reconsideration. The State and private sectors need to be brought closer together to work hand in hand. Although healthcare provision is disproportionately private in the US, in many countries public and private healthcare facilities run alongside each other quite effectively.
If the Government is to deliver on the promises it has made, this is surely the only way forward. Let the rhetoric stop and reality commence.
