NHS reforms 'won't bring more cash'- Lord Winston fertility expert
Fertility expert Lord Winston expressed doubt that Labour's NHS reforms would deliver more cash for services and spoke in favour of taking control of healthcare away from politicians. He criticised all political parties for not having been "absolutely candid" about problems facing the NHS and said that it would be difficult to meet spiralling costs from taxation alone.
While he said he believed "passionately" that in vitro fertilisation, his specialism, should be available on the NHS, he was "completely in agreement with the idea that people might pay something towards that".
The Labour peer and face of TV programmes such as Making Babies was asked for his thoughts on the Government's controversial plans for the NHS, which focus on the role of primary care trusts.
He told ITN: "I really do not feel that any political party has actually been absolutely candid about the basic problem. Nobody has really costed where we're going to be politically in ten or 15 or 20 years' time.
"The escalating and spiralling cost has to be met somewhere. I'm not sure it's going to be easy to meet it from taxation entirely. I think we need to be looking at different systems for funding as an augmentation."
Citing problems including the rising cost of drugs, he added: "This Government has done a tremendous job in really trying to increase the budget of the NHS.
"But you can see the effect is, although the NHS has improved, there are still hospital trusts that are in serious deficit and that's not just bad management. It's much more than that, it's a deeper problem."
Most hospital trusts are struggling "very significantly", Lord Winston added. And he said that he was "not convinced" that planned market-based reforms to the NHS would deliver the necessary cash to improve the situation.
Lord Winston went on to say that taking control of the NHS away from politicians could have the benefit of bringing stability to health policy.
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/articles/PA_NEWA16965371137314986A0?source=PA%20Feed
While he said he believed "passionately" that in vitro fertilisation, his specialism, should be available on the NHS, he was "completely in agreement with the idea that people might pay something towards that".
The Labour peer and face of TV programmes such as Making Babies was asked for his thoughts on the Government's controversial plans for the NHS, which focus on the role of primary care trusts.
He told ITN: "I really do not feel that any political party has actually been absolutely candid about the basic problem. Nobody has really costed where we're going to be politically in ten or 15 or 20 years' time.
"The escalating and spiralling cost has to be met somewhere. I'm not sure it's going to be easy to meet it from taxation entirely. I think we need to be looking at different systems for funding as an augmentation."
Citing problems including the rising cost of drugs, he added: "This Government has done a tremendous job in really trying to increase the budget of the NHS.
"But you can see the effect is, although the NHS has improved, there are still hospital trusts that are in serious deficit and that's not just bad management. It's much more than that, it's a deeper problem."
Most hospital trusts are struggling "very significantly", Lord Winston added. And he said that he was "not convinced" that planned market-based reforms to the NHS would deliver the necessary cash to improve the situation.
Lord Winston went on to say that taking control of the NHS away from politicians could have the benefit of bringing stability to health policy.
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/articles/PA_NEWA16965371137314986A0?source=PA%20Feed
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