Labour pledges to repeal NHS bill

[breadandbutterfly]

Wonderful news and a great vote winner if true. Has been strangely unpublicised:

www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/nov/17/labour-repeal-nhs-bill

Well, until he says what he's going to put in its place, all I can see now is the prospect of yet more unsettling reform.

I hope they can elaborate on their "return to 1948 principles" soon. This may be popular rhetoric, but it's not yet a policy.

Do you know when plans/costs will be unveiled?

How much description do you need? I think most voters would be happy with either a return to 1948 or a return to 2010 or pick any year in between, really.

As would the vast majority of healthcare professionals ie doctors and nurses.

Clearly, a few American leeches private healthcare companies might be gutted, but I can live with that.

Don't be silly - 1948 simply wouldn't be fit for purpose, and there are quite a few other periods I don't think would be great to emulate (try the utter paternalism and dreadful waiting times of the 1970s).

So yes - it is very necessary to spell out what the "post-repeal" health service will look like, and what the changes will cost (both short term for transition and long term). This is, I know, unexciting but it's vital. The public need to know what is on offer in a constructive way, and I hope this will be forthcoming.

Why? Without knowing yet what changes the Tories are going to manage to push through, how are Labour supposed to be able to prophesy precisely what they will repeal? Seems rather putting the cart before the horse.

Why? Because knocking is easy, but what you propose to build in it's stead is the only thing that really matters. And if you have clear, defined ideas, it doesn't matter what happens in the interim (though I agree the price tag might change - but provisional costs need to be part of the package).

1948, even the most fervent supporters of the NHS would admit, was complete chaos. The service was simply created overnight from thousands of individual practicioners and organisations, with no thought for the structure or administration of this new monster organisation. People were turning up at hospitals and walking off with bags of bandages, just because they could. It's why the NHS has struggled so much in the interim. It wasn't thought through.

Would this be like their 1997 promise to renationalise the railways?

Hurray! Ish.

Don't think it's necessary to replicate 1948 practice in order to consult 1948 principles, btw.

The main principle was free healthcare at the point of need. Which - if you don't count the prescription, dental and optician charges that Labour seem quite comfortable about - is still the case and there are no proposals to change that.

Wow - my first ever deleted post on mumsnet.

Is the Labour party monitoring my posts or something? I think I made a vaguely disparaging reference to the labour Party not necessarily keeping promises a la disputandem's comment (which is still there). Don't think i said anything remotely offensive, socking or in any way objectionable, that I can recall.

How bizarre. If you're the person who reported my post, or if anyone can remember what I wrote better than I can, can you give me a clue why?!

I'm sure I have written controversial things - but I'm pretty damn sure this wasn't one of them.

Thanks for posting this, Breadandbutterfly. It does sound hopeful.

But there are a lot of questions, eg can we trust him to honour his promises once in power?

It would be more convincing, imo, if he spoke in terms of principles, eg that the State will take responsibility for providing us with an NHS that is as good as it can be, and that the money that goes into it will come from our taxes and that no-one will make a profit out of it. The government needs to accept that more money will need to be spent on it every year, not less. The NHS is something that you can't cut - more people = more money needed. And most of us are happy to support it by paying our taxes, especially if it means that we are saved from the clutches of the health insurance companies and private health care providers, who want to make their profits from our misfortunes.

Amen, amen and amen to that, solopower. Fancy standing for PM? I think you have the mood of the nation about right - you can have my vote for starters... :)