Blair promises 18-week maximum hospital wait
No-one will have to wait longer than 18 weeks for a hospital appointment if Labour wins a third term, Prime Minister Tony Blair said today.
Unveiling a health ‘mini-manifesto’, he said the pledge showed Labour was determined to keep “driving forward” improvements in the NHS.
Waiting times have previously been measured from the date an appointment is booked to the date it takes place, but the new pledge would see everyone treated within 18 weeks of walking through the door of their GP’s surgery.
The pledge – which has been trailed by Labour politicians for months – would mean “no hidden waits”, he added.
Having visited St George’s Hospital in Tooting earlier in the day, the Prime Minister said he felt “not merely an immense sense of pride but also an immense determination that this improvement will continue”.
That improvement would only be made possible if the NHS’s capacity to carry out operations was increased – partly through the use of ‘alternative’ providers – and if patients could go to other hospitals when their local one was not up to scratch.
Mr Blair said there would always be problems with the NHS, but insisted that as a whole, it was improving. He “genuinely” believed the health service was recovering from years of Conservative neglect, and it was essential to not “turn the clock back” by voting in the Tories.
Doing so would take Britain down the path of “taking money out of NHS, subsidising the private sector for the few at the expense of many”, he said.
But Shadow Health Secretary Andrew Lansley said that there was nothing new in Labour’s mini manifesto.
Mr Lansley said: “We’ve heard it all before. Eight years ago, Mr. Blair said it would be ’24 hours to save the NHS’, but today one in three hospitals is in deficit, more people die of hospitals infections than on our roads, there are more administrators in Primary Care Trusts than there are GP’s, and average waiting times are up.
“Doctors and nurses are fed up with Government targets, interference and bureaucracy. They want to see the money for our NHS getting to front line services. They want to treat patients according to clinical judgements not government targets, and they want an NHS focused on the needs and choices of patients, not the dictates of ministers.”
And the Liberal Democrats branded the plans “political, prescriptive and bullying”.
Health spokesman Paul Burstow, said: “After eight years in office three words sum up Labour’s top-down, target-driven approach to the NHS: political, prescriptive and bullying.
“Labour’s first instinct when something goes wrong in the NHS is to set another target or impose another fine. Often the targets get hit but the point gets missed.
“Both Labour and the Tories are offering patients false choice. For most people their first choice is a quality health service close to home, but without quality and capacity ‘choice’ is just empty rhetoric.”
