Labour's
health service
Before the NHS was created, good healthcare was only available for the wealthy. The slightly more affluent middle classes would put savings aside to pay for basic GP and hospital treatment, but for many this was impossible. Diseases such as pneumonia, tuberculosis and diphtheria were often fatal because people couldn't afford the drugs required.
Proud of the NHS
Families feel safe in the knowledge that the NHS is there for them when they need it just as it was 60 years ago. We all have every reason to be proud of the NHS.
- Labour has trebled NHS spending since 1997.
- There are 38,000 doctors and 80,000 more nurses.
- Britain has more hospitals and the shortest waiting lists since records began.
- By the end of this year, most patients will be treated within 18 weeks of their GP referral - most waits are already shorter than this.
- Patients are now offered a completely free choice of any hospital in England when they need treatment.
- Smoke-free Britain means that virtually all enclosed spaces and workplaces are now free of smoke. The NHS has helped hundreds of thousands of smokers to quit.
- To help beat heart disease, we will make sure everyone aged between 40 and 74 is offered access to free health checks on the NHS from 2009, helping to save thousands of lives.
- By the end of 2010, an additional 500,000 women will be screened for breast cancer and two million men and women will be screened for bowel cancer. And we will offer teenage girls the opportunity to be vaccinated against cervical cancer. The NHS saves 9000 more lives a year from cancer than in 1996 and 31,000 more lives a year from heart disease.
Labour has invested in much better healthcare facilities with 83 major new hospitals being built, 3000 GP practices being improved or refurbished, 152 new GP-led health centres and has built 90 NHS walk-in centres and over 650 one-stop primary care centres. £750m is to be invested in new community hospitals.
The NHS . . . almost wrecked by the last Tory government
When Labour took over in 1997, the NHS was on its knees. Years of inadequate funding had resulted in long waiting lists and a shortage of doctors, nurses and equipment.
Even
though Labour has invested massive funds in NHS modernisation and has
provided a health service treating more patients than ever before, it
is unlikely that the Tories would ever provide the same level of support.
Behind the slick salesmanship of Mr. Cameron, they would take the NHS
back to where it was in the 1980s. They have already indicated that they
would: 
- scrap Labour's extended opening hours for GP surgeries
- scrap national waiting time targets - allowing waiting lists to grow as they did when last in power,
- bring back longer working hours for doctors and nurses, putting patients at risk (saving money for tax cuts by scrapping jobs),
- oppose Labour's plans for 152 new GP-led health centres across the country open 8am to 8pm 7 days a week,
- allow hospitals to go bust.
Tax cuts of £10 - £20 billion or more for the rich have been discussed by the Tories in the past. If they return to power those cuts can only be paid for by less funding for public services including the NHS.
There is a real threat that the public will be required to pay for "additional" health care services as more and more are let out to private companies. OK for the rich few, but a step on the way to a two-tier health service and minimal healthcare for the many.
