Thursday 19 November 2009

Conservative Healthcare Policy

The Blue Blog contains an article by David Cameron encapsulated in which is a preview of tonight's Conservative Party Political Broadcast, featuring a 'Cameron Direct' event in Watford.

Firstly, Cameron himself says it is unscripted and that anyone can come. Funny that - when I tried to attend two in Oxfordshire, the minute I supplied my name an e-mail was received saying the events were fully booked! But I digress........

In the video, 1min 16secs in, a question is posed, whether: "Would it be right for an incoming government to ringfence NHS spending during an economic downturn?", to which Cameron's response is that it would be so.

Digressing, again,Supporting People is the central government grant that is used to provide money for, amongst other things, Wardens at Sheltered Housing, with a view to providing support to the elderly and vulnerable who live in such accommodation.

At Cameron's surgery which I attended in Chipping Norton last Friday, he advised me that he agreed that grant should not be ringfenced - meaning local authorities could spend that money on whatever they liked - something which will result, and has resulted, in deaths caused by a lack of Warden presence.

Healthcare is healthcare whether it is providing medical treatment for injuries received, treating urgent health problems or even looking after the elderly and vulnerable - so the difference Mr. Cameron is...........?

When one considers we send £40million a day to the EU, coupled with the fact that whilst I am extremely sorry, for example, for the starving in Ethopia, it seems farcical that we do not look after own own needy - and dare one say deserving - first before trying to right the wrongs in the world and also providing money to 'mickey-mouse' organisations like the EU!

And this is 'Caring Conservatism'?



2 comments:

Dick Puddlecote said...

Why are they all looking askance at the NHS and agonising on where to cut budgets when the answer is quite clearly staring them in the face?

Namely, the diabolical £12bn waste on an entirely useless database, for one, and squillions thronw down a hole by advertising with no real impact or benefit.

Funnily enough, Jacqui Smith was on the radio yesterday and briefly hinted at a reform to the latter. While being griled on the Queen's Speech, she said that Burnham had identified savings in "the publicity budget". Dya think Cameron is about to be blindsided purely because of his party's reluctance to hit Labour in this very area?

If nothing else, he should be looking to scrap the database - boy would that free up a hell of a lot of funds for 'frontline services'.

But he won't ... tinkering is all the major parties are able to do. So mired are they in supporting their party machine and its huge diversity in opinions. They aren't parties anymore with a vision and a clear agenda, they are merely vote-gathering enterprises.

Witterings from Witney said...

Could not agree more, DP!