According to the Conservative Party website the Conservative Party will try to achieve the following if they gain power at the 2010 general election:

Few things matter more to our country than the NHS – it’s an institution that binds the nation together.

And a Conservative Government will work tirelessly to earn the trust of the patients and staff of the NHS.

* We will always provide the funding the NHS needs and are committed to real increases in health spending
* We will scrap Labour’s plans to cut A&E and maternity services, which are not supported by evidence that patient access and care will be improved, so that patients have access to high-quality services at their local hospital
* We will protect family doctor services by opposing Labour’s plans to impose impersonal “polyclinics” at the expense of local GP surgeries
* We will make money available for 45,000 more single rooms in the NHS over five years, almost doubling their current number. This will mean every patient going into hospital for planned care can have a single room if they want one
* We will reform the way drugs are priced so that all new treatments that are clinically effective are made available, ending the situation whereby cancer drugs that are routinely available in the rest of Europe and not provided in this country

Most importantly, we will set the NHS free from the ministerial meddling that has resulted in money being diverted from patient care to wasteful bureaucracy. We want to deliver an NHS that provides the best health standards in the world, and ensure every patient is able to choose a good healthcare provider for their needs.

Our draft NHS Autonomy and Accountability Bill, published in 2007, set out plans to release NHS staff from top-down interference and allow them to concentrate on doing what they do best: providing top-quality care to patients.

A vital part of this is the creation of an independent NHS Board to take responsibility for dividing up NHS funds between different parts of the country away from Ministerial meddling. This body will allocate money fairly and in a way which will help secure equal access to healthcare for all.

Conservative Party Health and NHS Policy :http://www.conservatives.com/Policy/Where_we_stand/Health.aspx

I would be interested to hear both positive and negative views on Conservative’s Health and NHS policies in the comments below?