If I am re-elected, I will:
- Demand an NHS Urgent Care Centre at Wycombe Hospital
- Continue to champion patients’ interests in Parliament and in Wycombe
- Ask Buckinghamshire County Council to explore buying out Labour’s expensive privately-financed hospitals across the county
- Campaign to increase local power over local NHS services
- Support commissioners to bring top-quality care closer to home
Nationally, Conservatives have pledged that we will:
- Continue to increase spending on the NHS, supported by a strong economy, so the NHS stays free for you to use
- Spend at least an additional £8 billion by 2020 over and above inflation to fund and support the NHS’s own action plan for the next five years
- Ensure you can see a GP and receive the hospital care you need, 7 days a week by 2020, with a guarantee that everyone over 75 will get a same-day appointment if they need one
- Integrate health and social care, through our Better Care Fund
- Lead the world in fighting cancer and finding a cure for dementia
The NHS is vitally important to all of us. Founded on the principle that no one should ever have to worry about their ability to pay for their healthcare, it is a profound expression of our values as a nation.
We protected the NHS budget. Our doctors and nurses are now doing over a million more operations each year than in 2010. Our Cancer Drugs Fund has given more than 60,000 people access to life-saving drugs. We have doubled funding for dementia research. Hospital infections have halved. An independent think tank, the Commonwealth Fund, has found that under the Conservatives the NHS has become the best healthcare system of any major country. And patients are reporting the highest levels of satisfaction for years. The NHS is performing well in the face of increasing demand, with fewer patients waiting longer than the 18, 26 and 52 week targets than in May 2010. We have slashed the number of people who wait over a year for the treatment they need, from over 18,000 to under 500.
We are set to increase health spending by more than £7 billion above and beyond inflation in the five years since 2010. And we will continue spend more on the NHS, in real terms, every year.
You can read more about our plans for health in the Conservative manifesto.
Dear Steve Baker,
I agree with everything that you and the Conservatives want to do with the NHS, locally and nationally.
My main concern with the conservative government is the low spending on defence at this highly volatile time compared with the high commitment on overseas development.
Having said that, I will definitely be voting for you on May 7th as any alternative is too ghastly to contemplate. People seem to have very short memories for as far as I remember, every time Labour have been in power the economy has gone to rack and ruin.
Good luck on the 7th.
John Williams
Thank you!
The UK has the largest defence budget in the EU and the second largest in NATO. The Government is committed to spending 2% of GDP on defence in 2015/16 and we are currently one of only four countries to do so. Various commitments have been given about the equipment programme and troop numbers.
I wrote about aircraft numbers in particular here:
http://www.stevebaker.info/2014/09/raf-capacity/
Suppose we doubled the defence budget. As a first approximation, that might give us twice as many fast jet squadrons. We would have 14: less than half as many as we had in 1991 when the first Gulf War started (30).
A doubling of the defence budget is obviously implausible. I believe we therefore must face the reality that if the armed forces insist on such extremely expensive equipment, we will have reduced numbers by historic standards. It seems to me that leads logically to the reality that the UK would have to fight any major war with allies. It underscores the need for our strategic nuclear deterrent.
Whenever I have raised this with the most senior officers, they have always re-confirmed their commitment to the capability and flexibility which comes from the most advanced equipment. They have not been open to having an RAF with larger numbers of less expensive but highly capable aircraft of previous generations which I would have thought better matched the threat we realistically face. It seems to me the pattern is repeated across the armed forces.
With all that in mind, while I support the 2% target, I think the situation is much more complex than hitting that target.
These issues are dealt with in greater detail on pages 75-78 of the manifesto, which you can find here:
https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/manifesto2015/ConservativeManifesto2015.pdf