The Green Party launched their policy on the NHS yesterday, an issue important to hundreds of people in Brent faced with problems with getting GP appointments, long hospital waiting lists and finding an NHS dentist willing to take on them and their children.
To offer Real Hope and Real Change for the NHS, Greens would:
Invest £50 billion per year by 2030 into health and social care - more than any other
major party - and would use the money to:
o Dramatically reduce waiting lists;
o Offer everyone access to an NHS dentist;
o Guarantee urgent access to a GP and same day access for those in urgent need;
o Invest £5bn per year to boost NHS salaries and keep our wonderful nurses and
doctors in the UK;
o Invest £20 billion per year into adult social care to ensure dignity for those in
need of care and take pressure off the NHS;
o Restore public health budgets with a £1.5bn uplift in spending
Invest £20bn in a capital investment to bring our crumbling hospitals and old equipment
up to standard.
We estimate that to meet these commitments, the NHS in England would require an additional
annual expenditure of £30bn a year by 2030 while adult social would require an additional £20
billion per year.
How will we fund this? By Taxing Wealth Fairly
Our wealth tax will tax the wealth of individual taxpayers with assets above £10 million
at 1% and assets above £1bn at 2% annually.
Our reform Capital Gains Tax will align the rates paid by taxpayers on income and
taxable gains. This would affect less than 2% of all income-tax payers.
Align tax rates on investment income with the tax and NIC rates on employment
income.
Remove the NI Upper Earnings Limit that restricts the amount of National Insurance
paid by high earners. Tax rates should not fall as income increases.
Equate the rate of pension tax relief with the basic rate of income tax to help fund the
social care that will allow elderly and disabled people on low incomes to live in dignity.
We estimate that by the end of the next parliament these tax changes could add raise between
£50 and £70bn pounds per year in 2024 prices.
A Green Plan to reduce hospital waiting lists and restore pay
The long-term under funding of the NHS has left nearly 8 million of us on hospital waiting lists.
Greens would bring down hospital waiting lists by giving Hospital Trusts clear, long-term,
funding commitments, so that they can better plan to deliver better care for us all.
NHS staff have taken unprecedented strike action to raise the alarm about the crisis in our
health service. We will prioritise supporting NHS workers, including by providing an immediate
one-off budget increase to cover fair wage settlements. This will address staff shortages and
encourage our valuable health workers to stick with the NHS.
We will tackle the crisis in staff retention through pushing for an immediate and additional
increase to the budgets for NHS staff costs, to ensure salaries are fair and reflect the essential
skills and dedication of the NHS workforce. The Green Party will act quickly to tackle the crisis
in staff retention through an immediate and additional pay rise to that offered in 2023, closer to
the rate of inflation. We will meet the junior doctor’s call for pay restoration to reflect the need to
keep them within the NHS.
Elected Greens will support the junior doctors’ call for pay restoration. It’s foolish and
irresponsible to continue to invest hundreds of thousands of pounds in training and then pay
them so poorly. It cost taxpayers around £200,000 to put a doctor through medical school.
When these talented and highly trained people graduate, we are not going to keep hold of them
if we pay them £16 an hour.
We also need to improve the quality of hospital buildings and equipment. We would make a £20
bn capital investment over the life of Parliament for hospital and primary care buildings and
facilities.
Protect our NHS from Privatisation – keep our NHS public
Green MPs will support legislation to abolish wasteful competition within the NHS, re-establish
public bodies and public accountability, and restrict the role of commercial companies.
This blueprint is designed to reverse the damage caused by previous governments that have
pursued an agenda that the market could make the NHS better. By contrast, Greens will always
stand against the marketisation and privatisation of our precious health service and will choose
instead to protect our NHS and keep it in public hands.
We Own It claim that Private healthcare providers are making £1 billion from current NHS
outsourcing contracts.New research shows 94% of health service contracts are set to expire by
July 2029. There is no reason why the services provided under these outsourced contracts
cannot be brought back in house.
Social Care
There is a crisis in social care, with over 400,000 people awaiting care, reviews, payments or
assessments. There are 150,000 staff vacancies in the care sector. In England there are
estimated to be 4.7 million unpaid carers. Greens believe that health and care services go hand
in hand. We would choose to invest in both, as part of our commitment to a country where
everybody can look forward to compassion and dignity at any stage in their lives when they
need extra support.
To address the social care crisis elected Greens will push for
Free personal care to ensure dignity for all those who need care
Increased pay rates and a career structure for carers to rebuild the care workforce
Investment of £20 billion per year in adult social care and an additional £3 for children
social care.
The Green Party believes free social care is fundamental to a functioning welfare state. Elected
Greens will push for the introduction in England and Wales of free personal care along the lines
successfully brought in by the Scottish Government. For those still living at home, access to free
personal care will enable earlier intervention and access to help to maintain independence and
wellbeing. For those living in residential settings, the personal care elements will be fully funded,
alongside a tapered approach to other costs based on the level of their income. For those
struggling to afford the accommodation element of residential care local authorities need to be
properly funded to provide the right level of financial support.
NHS Dentistry
The crisis in our dental service means that people are pulling out their own teeth while even
children can’t get access to and NHS dentists. Tooth decay remains top reason for child hospital
admissions.
To end the scandal of dental treatment deserts, Elected Greens will push for:
An additional investment in NHS dentistry, reaching £3bn a year by 2030
A new contract for NHS dentists that ensures everybody who needs an NHS dentist has
access to one.
Green Plan for increased investment in primary care and public health
We think it’s vital to invest in primary care: General Practitioners (GPs) are key to both
prevention and early diagnosis. Choosing to invest in primary care and public health will
improve everyone’s quality of life, while also reducing the demand on the rest of the NHS.
Greens will push for:
Increasing the allocation of funding to primary medical care, with additional annual
spending reaching £1.5bn by 2030, targeted at areas of greatest need.
Reducing administrative burden on GPs, giving them more time face to face with
patients. Steps could include allowing hospital doctors to make onward referrals without
needing to go back to a patient’s GP.
A £2 billion capital investment in primary care over the next five years.
Mental health
Elected Greens will ensure that the rights of those struggling with their mental health are
respected and that a legal framework supports all people to live fulfilling lives. This will include
ensuring that everyone who needs it can access evidence-based mental health therapies within
28 days.
We will ensure that tailored and specific provision is readily available for the particular needs of
communities of colour, children and adolescents, older people and Lesbian, Gay Bisexual,
Trans, Intersex, Queer and Asexual (LGBTIQA+) communities.
Putting this investment into perspective
Under our plans, spending on the NHS would increase by 1% of GDP by 2030.
Day-to-day spending on the English NHS is currently around £180bn per year, which is about
6.5% of UK GDP. If the budgets for the devolved administrations are included, this rises to 8%
of GDP.
By 2029/30 we expect day-to-day spending on the NHS across the UK to rise to 8.9% of GDP
(from 8.0%) under current government plans, our costings add £30 bn to English HNS budget in 2029/30. This would increase the revenue budget for that year by about 12%. Including the devolved administrations, our plans would increase revenue spending on health in 2029/30 to 9.9%, an increase of 1 percentage point.
Note: On devolved nations, the headline figures here are for England and our costed manifesto
will include funding to cover the parallel increases in spending in Scotland, Wales and Northern
Ireland.
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