Renewing the National Health Service: Labour's Agenda for a Healthier Britain

Abstract

In this report the Labour Party gives its view of the current status of the British National Health Service (NHS), and outlines its plans for the NHS under a Labour government. The values underlying the NHS—comprehensive health care, free at the point of use, based on need rather than ability to pay—have been betrayed. The truly national health service, created by a Labour government in 1948, has been replaced by a market-based service led by accountants. Patients are suffering, health care professionals are dissatisfied, some of the nation's finest hospitals are closing, community care is in chaos, and NHS dentistry has all but been privatized. Under the Tories, the NHS faces a future of privatization, competition, and markets, money wasted on bureaucracy, and the unfairness of a two-tier system. Under Labour, the NHS faces modernization, planned progress, money spent on frontline services, and excellence for all. Labour will follow a model of health care that is patient centered and community led, a properly coordinated and efficient public service.