Ed Miliband has described Labour’s promised £2.5bn cash for the NHS as a downpayment, as he promised action to provide more trained nurses in the first 100 days of taking office, saying he would ask universities to reopen courses to provide them.
Speaking in Manchester, the Labour leader promised a rescue plan for the NHS that would include emergency planning now, to prevent another A&E crisis this winter.
He also promised that the £2.5bn extra cash for the NHS would start in the first year of a Labour government and said he needed to address not just nurse recruitment but also nurse retention.
Labour has been criticised for earmarking only £2.5bn when the NHS itself has said there is a minimum £8bn shortfall. The Tories are promising the full £8bn but not saying how they would pay for it.
He insisted: “The £2.5bn is a downpayment; there are big funding pressures on the NHS some of the parties are promising money for later but they are not telling you where the money is coming from. I think the money is needed now.”
He promised that Labour would halt privatisation by promising to the repeal of the Health and Social Care Act. “First things first, the next Labour government will start by saving the NHS.”
Speaking at a packed and supportive event at Manchester Metropolitan University, he said: ”The general election is getting closer and closer. There is just over two weeks to go now. Just over two weeks to decide what the future looks like for our country. Not simply a competition between parties. But a choice between two different visions of the country.”
He said: “Two-thirds of nurses today say patients are missing out on care because there just aren’t enough nurses on the wards. Today we hear the news that one in three NHS Trusts were investigated last year over safe staffing. None of this has happened by accident. It has happened as a direct result of choices this government has made.
“The Tories want you to believe they’re going to spend more on the NHS, with money they can’t identify, from a place they cannot name.” The £2.5bn is to be raised through a mansion tax on properties worth over £2bn, a levy on the profits of tobacco companies and hedge funds.
In an effort to inject some urgency into his plan he promised: “Labour ministers will instruct officials to write to colleges and universities, and call on them to reopen admissions for highly oversubscribed nursing courses this year.
