Health
The NHS is costing us more and more each year and yet we are getting worse service and are more ill than ever before. The rise in MRSA, the so-called superbug, continues and thousands of people are dying of it.
Current government policy is selling our hospitals and health care services to private companies, costing the tax payers more money and reducing the ability of clinical staff to provide good health care. The supposed promotion of choice does nothing to ensure that efficient and effective health care is provided locally and actually limits many of the true freedoms currently enjoyed.
Drug companies have provided us with some great advancements, but they are also increasingly draining resources from the NHS and trying to exert growing influence over our doctors and nurses.
Unless the root causes of ill health are addressed the NHS will become unaffordable and only those able to pay will have access to health care. The aging population will be a real challenge in 30 or 40 years unless we act now. A Green approach involves increasing the level of awareness of when to seek health care and when to allow things to get better naturally. It is also important to protect those suffering mental health problems from discrimination wherever it may occur.
A key policy is to reverse the sale of NHS services and hospitals to private companies. For example we are going to bring cleaners back into the NHS team. This will mean that financial pressures and a lack of accountability that have reduced standards of sanitation would be removed: cleaner hospitals will reduce the levels of MRSA.
This can be achieved by focusing research and funding on public health issues such as the effects of pollution and the benefits of exercise. We will start by promoting cycling and walking to school, which will reduce pollution and help to combat childhood asthma. Ensuring schools provide healthy meals will reduce the levels of obesity in children.
We will introduce a NHS tax to make the level of funding for the NHS transparent for all. There will be the ability to increase taxation locally, if people decide, so that local NHS services can benefit directly, just as the police and schools can at present. We will reduce the level of spending on defence to provide further funds for health care. These changes in funding will allow us to abolish prescription charges.
Our focus on increasing community based services and community health centres will keep care as local as possible. This will ensure that treatment for conditions not requiring specialist care or admission to hospital will be provided far more locally than at present. We are not opposed to people being able to choose where they get their healthcare from; but real choice is being able to feel confident in your local hospital.
The Green party accepts the reality of drug use and strives to minimize harm, both to user and to society. Cannabis can be an effective pain relief treatment for patients with incurable conditions and as such it should be re-legalised. Studies show that in countries such as Holland, where cannabis is decriminalized, use is much lower than in the UK. Prohibition means there is no mechanism for controlling the strength of ecstasy or cocaine and this has directly resulted in deaths. Inside a legal framework, drugs would not contain dangerous impurities and doctors would be better placed to offer help. Heroin should be treated as a public health issue and funding for research into halting addiction should be released.
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A Green New Deal for the NHS
Proposals to reform the NHS, specifically in the areas of PFI, maternity services and dentistry
More detail
Health section of full policy document
