Health Care Policy
Whatever your personal feelings on the matter of the National Health Service - NHS, or health care in general, the New British Union realise the importance that a strong and constructive health policy is to the British people today as well as meeting our counties future demands. The health service debate has been raging in this country year on year, decade on decade. It has been raging between parties of the left, the centre and the right ever since it was founded in 1948. For us today it seems a long time ago when health secretary Aneurin Bevan opened Park Hospital in Manchester. This was the climax of a hugely ambitious plan to bring good healthcare to all the people of this country. For the first time, hospitals, doctors, nurses, pharmacists, opticians and dentists were brought together under one umbrella under one organisation to provide services that were free for all at the point of delivery to the public. Ever since that time the NHS has become an intrinsic part of our nation, our culture and our people, so much so that it is impossible for many to remember a time when free health care was not available.
To lay down a policy on health, without including the NHS, would be an irrelevance as the two are totally interlinked. Therefore, if a political party is to build on a future, a sound health policy must be developed and based on the premise that the NHS will continue. However, it is equally sound to suggest that recognition be paid to a NHS that is not functioning to the best of its ability, thus an amount of change must be imparted so to allow this potential to be realised.
The New British Union the healthcare policy for the United Kingdom will be to renationalise the NHS. This policy will therefore roll back the semi-privatisation of the NHS and all the outside private interference that comes with it. In line with our basic principles, the NBU will promote stakeholders (the general public) not shareholders whose only interest is a return on the capital invested. The NHS was and must remain a public body free from private financial expectations. In effect, the NHS must be operated as a non-profit organisation and nationalised. We cannot expect to keep running the NHS as if it were another private company, suppressing services, removing staff and closing hospitals simply to maintain a shareholder return.
This is not to say that we will tolerate inefficiencies within the NHS. Therefore, the NBU will equip the NHS with top-class professional managers at both senior and middle management positions. No longer will we see Doctors being forced into managerial roles, effectively turning a good Doctor into poor managers. Professional mangers, instilling standards, accountabilities, sound business practices, key performance indicators and achievable and realistic performance goals, are the key to success.
It is a key point in New British Union health care policy that the NHS must provide the same level of like for like care across the country. The NHS should and will offer the same level of care and investment per-capita no matter where you live under a New British Union government. This must be something that we aim for, otherwise we may just as well scrap the NHS and national health care policy in this country altogether and institute a private health program offering insurance incentives. The beauty and simplicity of the NHS when it was given to the nation in 1948 was to offer the people of this country cradle to grave health care including dentistry and other areas of health no matter where in the county you lived.
It must be stated that without the tireless work and effort of the nursing staff we cannot even start to imagine rebuilding the NHS back to its former glory. It is important that the male and female nurses
once again feel valued and important, rather than just a means to an end. As with any vocational profession, it takes years of dedication so to achieve the standards required. Therefore a full pay grade review will be undertaken, with a view of once again encouraging the young and the brightest back into the NHS. Service to ones country and its people shall once again be held in esteem, affording the individual the gratitude of a thankful society and the personal benefits that such gratitude brings.
It is also important that the New British Union look at the costly effects on both finances and nursing on what has become known as "health tourism". As of October 2012 Health tourism cost our nation in the region of £40million a year of taxpayer’s money. Health tourists taking advantage of free treatment on the NHS have cost the taxpayer dearly and it is still going on unchecked. To combat this, a identity card system will be introduced against which NHS treatment, in non-life threatening situations, will be denied from those who fail to produce an identity card.
As you can see the cost to the NHS put’s an enormous strain on the public funding that goes in to the NHS. The New Brinish Union do not want to tell people what to eat or when exercise or when to take notice of their health, but we want people to take action in their own lives after all New British Union is a fascist party and fascism is all about taking action and we need to instill in our people the need to take action when it comes to their own physical welfare. This is the driving force behind the NBU health service, to make people feel better about themselves and also about assuring people that they can be treated well when they are admitted to hospital. Time has come for a drastic and realistic change in our health service, and it needs to be done now before we find ourselves without a health service left to change.
For the New British Union one of the biggest travestied of the modern age is the Barnett formula which allowed for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to be exempt from prescription charges. The New British Union would roll back this crime against the people of England; we would make sure that no one is charged for their proscriptions within the United Kingdom. It is a travesty that England and England alone should be given the burden of paying prescription charges. The Barnett formula once again proclaims to the public that the NHS is anything but national health, and more like regional health, there is no moral argument for people being charged for vital medical supplies that they urgently need, when the majority of people are paying their taxes in to a national system which is supposed to cater for things such as this, as we have stated this has to stop and we in British Union will stop it.
This is the basic health policy of the New British Union. We understand that it is a complex issue and that there are still areas that have not been covered in this document. However we believe that we have outlined our commitment to the NHS and we believe that we have made it clear that we will stand by this national institution of health.