Saturday 10 October 2015

Let's have real proposals for the Welsh NHS and not just funding promises

Oh Dear: Conservative Assembly leader Andrew RT Davies boast that thee coming Assembly election is a referendum on Labour’s handling of the NHS and a chance for voters to tell the party its time is up,. Looks like it come back to bite him with news that NHS trusts in England have racked up a £930m deficit in the first three months of the financial year - that is more than the entire overspend last year.

After all how can we tryst the Tories to run the NHS in Wales when they are blatantly failing to do so in England


Describing the May election as a “referendum on the NHS,” hMr Davies said: 


“It is about time for change... If you want to make sure that the public services that you hold dear here in Wales are run to your advantage so you can get the appointment you need, so your child can get the best education possible, so your business gets the opportunity it wants in Wales, then we do need that change and we’re the only ones who can effect it – May next year will be the opportunity to do that.”

Describing the approach he wants to take on health, he said: “The key change is we will protect the NHS budget which is something Labour chose not to do in 2011. We are committed to putting the entire Barnett consequential [into] the Welsh NHS.”
Which looks like the Tories are committing to taking money from already money starved services  and diverting it to the NHS.

Its will be  very poor election if the Political Parties basically  just claim how much more money they can throw at the NHS even if it ends up as some kind of Dutch Auction with the electorate deciding whose funding plans are the most realistic rather than the highest amount .

Meanwhile Plaid who are as guilty at times as other s in making elaborate spending plans as the other parties have at least come up with a practical plan

The proposals which are expected to be central to the party's campaign to win power in the 2016 assembly election.

Wales' health boards would be scrapped and major hospitals placed under one body, in new Plaid Cymru plans.

Local councils would take charge of community services, such as GPs' surgeries, district nurses and mental health, under the plans.

As someone who is currently a Patient in Hospitals which are run by 3 different Health Boards for a condition which is linked but  to different treatments, I accept some Hospitals may specialise, but having one body in charge make sense  and maybe the hospitals actualy may talk to each other and you can find out information from all your surgeries in any appointment.

Having the patient telling the Doctor  in Hospital A what was said  in
 Hospital B is no way to run a health service.
The GP proposal  etc would probably have to wait until some form of Local Government reorganisation.

Mind you if a First Minister wanted to cut the wings of a potential leadership rival, making him or her Health Minister would be a sure way.


 But lets have realistic proposals for the Welsh NHS and not just promised of funding which will probably not be carried out but which the wining party as the Tories in Westminster will fiddle the accounts to claim is happening .



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