Health

DIRTY HOSPITALS

• The incidence of the hospital superbug MRSA has more than doubled since 1997, despite Labour’s 23 ‘initiatives’ to tackle the problem. Hospital-acquired infections kill 5,000 people a year – more than the number who die on Britain’s roads.

HOSPITAL PERFORMANCE

• Over one million people are still waiting for treatment on the NHS.

• 1.4 million more people would be getting hospital treatment if Labour had kept up the rate of increase in completed hospital treatments achieved by the NHS under the Conservatives.

• Death rates from respiratory disease in the UK are nearly twice the EU average and worse than Azerbaijan, Albania, Ukraine and Romania.

• Lung cancer, one of the biggest killers in Britain, has survival rates lower than Estonia, Slovakia and Slovenia. Breast cancer survival rates are the lowest in Western Europe.

• The Government has failed to fulfil its promises, made in both the 1997 and the 2001 Manifestos, to abolish mixed-sex wards.

DENTISTRY

• Tony Blair promised that everyone would have the chance to see their dentist. Only 38.8 per cent of the adult population and 54.6 per cent of children are registered with an NHS dentist.

POOR VALUE FOR MONEY

• The number of managers in the NHS is increasing three times as fast as the number of doctors and nurses.

• Spending on hospital and community services has increased by nearly 30 per cent between 1999 and 2003, but the number of hospital treatments only went up by just under 5 per cent.

• Despite Labour’s 66 tax rises, over one million people in the UK are waiting for treatment on the NHS.

• Hospital infections cost the NHS £1 billion a year. £1 billion would pay for 47,000 nurses, 14,000 doctors or over 220,000 hip replacement operations.

• Despite the increased spending on the NHS, productivity has fallen by nearly one per cent per year since 1997. If the private sector was run like the NHS, the economy would have been in recession for the past seven years.

CONSERVATIVE ACTION

• On the first day of a Conservative Government, we will abolish Whitehall targets which mean hospitals cannot close beds or wards for cleaning. Doctors and nurses should control our hospitals.

• Within the first week, we will make it possible for people to have access to information about hospital performance, including on infection rates. Patients will be able to tell how likely they are to contract infection in a hospital department. Hospitals will also have to publish their action plans on how they are fighting infections. Local hospitals should be made accountable to patients.

• Within the first month, we will set out our programme of legislation to give patients the right to choose to be treated in any hospital that provides NHS standards of care at NHS costs. Patients should not be forced to be treated in dirty hospitals.

• Within the first month, we will set out plans to support infection control teams and recruit more front-line staff to back up hospitals’ efforts to fight infection. Rapid action is needed to stop infections spreading.

• Within the first year, we will set out how we can boost training in infection control. Health professionals and cleaners need to know best practice.

• Within the first year, We will speed up work to bring new solutions for combating hospital-acquired infection into local hospitals. The latest science and research needs to be used to combat MRSA.

• Conservatives will give hospitals freedom from Whitehall control, by allowing them to become foundation trusts with increased powers to manage their own affairs.

• Patients will be able to be treated in a private hospital for free, provided it charges the same tariff as the NHS.

Promoted by G A Nichols on behalf of Andrew Turner, both of 58 The Mall, Carisbrooke Road, Newport, Isle of Wight, PO30 1BW and by
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