Originally published in healthmatters issue 29, Spring 1997, page 3
News
Those policies so far
The new Labour government promised to ‘hit the ground running’.
But did it? Here are the major policy announcements so far: you be the judge.
On the internal market and action to reduce bureaucracy:
- reduction in management costs by £80m
- selective checking of invoices, with ‘multiple’ rather than single invoices
- possibly mergers of NHS trusts
On fundholding:
- eighth wave of fundholders to be deferred for a year
- entry to the scheme to move to a two year cycle
- fundholding budgets may be used by health authorities under pressure from emergency activity
- fundholder overspends to be met by budget cuts in following years
- windfall savings to be returned
On cancer treatment:
- an extra £10m nationally to improve speed of access to diagnostic and treatment services
On public health:
- a clear committment to ban advertising, including tobacco sponsorship of sporting events
- a white paper to be published setting out a strategy to reduce smoking
- appointment of Tessa Jowell, minister of state for public health, with a remit to address health inequalities
On hospitals:
- publication of the NHS (Private Finance) Bill to overcome problems with projects close to signing PFI deals
- review of the PFI, mainly to streamline priority-setting and reduce project development costs
- £5m to improve paediatric intensive care services
On nursing:
- local pay to be scrapped
- new guidelines on reducing violence towards staff
- flexible working and child care
