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Chronicle Live
National
Jonathan Walker

General election 2019: What are the parties saying about the NHS and the health service?

The health service has been one of the top issues in this general election, and surveys suggest it's what many voters care about most.

Here's a round-up of what the different parties said in their manifestos:

Conservative Party:

  • Increase NHS funding by 29% by 2023. That will eventually come to £650m per week

  • Build and fund 40 new hospitals over the next 10 years

  • Provide 50,000 more nurses, with students receiving a £5,000-£8,000 annual maintenance grant (not loan) every year to help with their cost of living

  • Recruit 6,000 more doctors in general practice and 6,000 more primary care professionals

  • Treat mental health with the same urgency as physical health

 

Labour Party:

  • Increase expenditure across the health sector by an average 4.3% a year

  • End and reverse what Labour calls privatisation in the NHS

  • Free annual NHS dental check-ups.

  • Provide an additional £1.6 billion a year to ensure new standards for mental health are enshrined in the NHS constitution ensuring access to treatments is on a par with that for physical health conditions.

  • Abolish prescription charges in England

  • Ensure no one ever again needs to face catastrophic care costs of more than £100,000 for the care they need in old age, which we will underscore with a lifetime cap on personal contributions to care costs.

Liberal Democrats:

  • Raise £7bn a year in additional revenue by putting 1p on Income Tax, with this money to be ringfenced for spending on the NHS and social care.

  • Use this cash to relieve the crisis in social care, tackle urgent workforce shortages, and to invest in mental health and prevention services.

  • Also use £10bn from the proposed £130bn capital fund to make investments in equipment, hospitals, community, ambulance and mental health services buildings

  • In the long term create a dedicated Health and Care Tax, offset by other tax reductions, on the basis of wide consultation and extensive engagement with the public.

Green Party:

  • Increase funding for the NHS by at least £6 billion per year each year, until 2030 (a 4.5% increase on the 2018/2019 NHS Budget)

  • Roll back privatisation of the NHS, through repealing the Health and Social Care Act 2012 and abolishing the internal market.

  • Focus funding to enable the construction of new community health centres, bringing health services closer to people’s homes

  • Focus funding to enable major improvements to mental health care to truly put it on an equal footing with physical health care

  • Ensure that all forms of birth control are free

Brexit Party:

  • Oppose privatisation of the NHS; where existing private initiatives have failed to deliver, the Brexit Party will return them to public ownership.

  • Support investment in medical research and development

  • Abolish all politically imposed hospital targets that distort clinical priorities.

  • Re-open the nursing and midwifery professions to recruitment without the degree requirement, alongside a new nursing qualification in social care

  • Introduce 24-hour GP surgeries to relieve the strain in A&E departments.

  • Have a national debate to discuss ring-fencing the NHS budget and the tax revenues that pay for it

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