By Lucy Phillips
23 April 2010
The three main parties clashed over future health care funding at an election debate in London yesterday attended by representatives from across the NHS.
Health Secretary Andy Burnham, shadow health secretary Andrew Lansley and Liberal Democrat health spokesman Norman Lamb reiterated their promises to protect funding for frontline services. But they admitted a new government would face tough financial decisions as the NHS sought to make £20bn efficiency savings by 2014.
All three health leaders pledged not to repeat mistakes of the past after a warning from the chief executive of the Royal College of Nursing, Dr Peter Carter. He claimed that in 2006/07 a much smaller funding shortfall of £1.3bn led to 22,000 jobs and vital services being lost across the health service.
Burnham said: ‘The NHS in places did not handle the situation very well and lost the confidence of staff. Big numbers were given for reductions but they never came anything close to that. The handling and management of this will be crucially important.’ He cited Labour’s pledge to cut management costs by 30% so as to protect the front line.
Lamb said the last time the English NHS faced a financial crisis ‘all the wrong things were cut’, such as mental health and public health programmes and nursing staff. ‘Our choice now is whether you slash and burn services using less trained staff.... or alternatively redesign the way money works in the NHS to make it more efficient,’ he said.
Lansley claimed the NHS had taken on 12% more managers last year but just 2% more nurses. There were now shortages of some specialist nurses, he said, pledging to ‘move the cost of admin into the front line’.
Lamb added that reducing administration and management in primary care trusts to 2005 levels would save £800m.
The long-running dispute over future funding for adult social care was also reignited at the debate. Attempts to build a cross-party consensus failed earlier in the year.
The government’s white paper, published at the end of March, said it would work to achieve a consensus on funding over the next Parliament but no changes would come into effect until the Parliament after that. Both Lamb and Lansley attacked Burnham for delaying reform until 2016, with Lamb saying ‘a lot of the groundwork has been done’.
Lamb said the LibDems would aim to reform services ‘within a year of a general election’. He revealed his support for the partnership proposals put forward by the King’s Fund think-tank, where costs of care are shared between individuals and the state. ‘That’s my preference but we have to try to do this together and build a consensus,’ he added.
Burnham retorted: ‘The only answer to a fair social care system in this country is to have a comprehensive system where everybody makes a contribution and we share the costs and risks of care across the system. If I come back into this job it will remain my maximum priority.’
The Conservatives’ proposals for a voluntary insurance scheme came under fire from both opponents. Burnham said he did not think it would protect ‘any more than 10% of people’. Lamb claimed the best take-up of such a system around the world was in France where it stood at just 20%.
Lansley defended his party’s proposals, saying alternative compulsory contributions would ‘end up undermining people who take responsibility within the family as carers’.
23 April 2010
The three main parties clashed over future health care funding at an election debate in London yesterday attended by representatives from across the NHS.
Health Secretary Andy Burnham, shadow health secretary Andrew Lansley and Liberal Democrat health spokesman Norman Lamb reiterated their promises to protect funding for frontline services. But they admitted a new government would face tough financial decisions as the NHS sought to make £20bn efficiency savings by 2014.
All three health leaders pledged not to repeat mistakes of the past after a warning from the chief executive of the Royal College of Nursing, Dr Peter Carter. He claimed that in 2006/07 a much smaller funding shortfall of £1.3bn led to 22,000 jobs and vital services being lost across the health service.
Burnham said: ‘The NHS in places did not handle the situation very well and lost the confidence of staff. Big numbers were given for reductions but they never came anything close to that. The handling and management of this will be crucially important.’ He cited Labour’s pledge to cut management costs by 30% so as to protect the front line.
Lamb said the last time the English NHS faced a financial crisis ‘all the wrong things were cut’, such as mental health and public health programmes and nursing staff. ‘Our choice now is whether you slash and burn services using less trained staff.... or alternatively redesign the way money works in the NHS to make it more efficient,’ he said.
Lansley claimed the NHS had taken on 12% more managers last year but just 2% more nurses. There were now shortages of some specialist nurses, he said, pledging to ‘move the cost of admin into the front line’.
Lamb added that reducing administration and management in primary care trusts to 2005 levels would save £800m.
The long-running dispute over future funding for adult social care was also reignited at the debate. Attempts to build a cross-party consensus failed earlier in the year.
The government’s white paper, published at the end of March, said it would work to achieve a consensus on funding over the next Parliament but no changes would come into effect until the Parliament after that. Both Lamb and Lansley attacked Burnham for delaying reform until 2016, with Lamb saying ‘a lot of the groundwork has been done’.
Lamb said the LibDems would aim to reform services ‘within a year of a general election’. He revealed his support for the partnership proposals put forward by the King’s Fund think-tank, where costs of care are shared between individuals and the state. ‘That’s my preference but we have to try to do this together and build a consensus,’ he added.
Burnham retorted: ‘The only answer to a fair social care system in this country is to have a comprehensive system where everybody makes a contribution and we share the costs and risks of care across the system. If I come back into this job it will remain my maximum priority.’
The Conservatives’ proposals for a voluntary insurance scheme came under fire from both opponents. Burnham said he did not think it would protect ‘any more than 10% of people’. Lamb claimed the best take-up of such a system around the world was in France where it stood at just 20%.
Lansley defended his party’s proposals, saying alternative compulsory contributions would ‘end up undermining people who take responsibility within the family as carers’.
