As health select committee chair most of the time I focus on holding the Govt to account on health. But occasionally opposition parties need to be called out too - never more so than today….
It’s outrageous that Lab & Lib Dems will vote against £12bn extra for the NHS & soc care after the year we’ve had. This is politicking of the worst kind because the crisis in the NHS & care system is real. Any wealth tax v unlikely to raise the sums needed for ageing population.
But even though it was tough for a Conservative PM & Chx to raise taxes, what comes next - turning money into results with proper reform - will be even tougher. Having dipped our hands into their pockets voters will be very angry if they don't see tangible improvements fast.
So here are 3 traps to avoid from someone who has probably fallen into every trap in the book….
Firstly, unless we urgently address the workforce crisis, all the worst fears about pouring money into a black hole will be realised. You can give the NHS £8 bn extra for the next 3 years but without £8 bn of extra doctors and nurses to do the work nothing will change.
The Health Foundation told @CommonsHealth last week it will take 4,000 more doctors & 18,000 more nurses to clear the backlog - but so far there is no plan to find them.
Relaxing immigration rules for overseas clinicians is only short term option (not great for developing countries) but only one sensible solution long term, so far rejected by govt: an ind body to make workforce projections on training enough doctors and nurses for the future.
2nd trap is to sleepwalk into another Mid Staffs: this happened when funding was going up not down so the problem was not ££ but targets culture which made no.s more important than people. NHS has moved on but as we tackle waiting lists we must redouble our focus safety & quality
Final trap is social care funding. This levy is supposed to be principally about social care reform overall, but even in a generous settlement there wasn’t enough for soc care in the short term. After that there remains a big risk the NHS continues to gobble up the settlement.
The govt should therefore ringfence the social care allocation. If we can’t give the sector ££ it needs right away, we can at least give it stability and certainty for future.
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