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05/01/10 :Labour duo in NHS challenge to Cameron:
Labour candidates Anneliese Dodds and Naz Sarkar have thrown down a challenge to Conservative leader David Cameron, who is coming to Reading on Friday to talk about the NHS: to answer their questions about Conservative policy on what they believe is a real dividing line between the parties.
In a letter emailed to Mr Cameron today, they say:
"Dear Mr Cameron,
We were pleased to learn that you are coming to Reading to talk about the NHS. We may not be allowed to come to your meeting. So, we thought it would be helpful to set down the questions that we would like you to answer.
Local people well remember the NHS under the Conservatives as subject to a permanent financial squeeze. Berkshire was appallingly funded for its population relative to the rest of the country. Facilities were crumbling with the lack of investment, and staff wages and conditions were constantly under threat.
The last twelve years of Labour Government have seen massive modernisation of our Royal Berkshire Hospital, making it one of the top hospitals in the region. The dismal old mental health hospital at Fairmile has been replaced with an excellent new hospital at Prospect Park. The quality of community services has greatly improved, waiting times for hospital treatment have dropped dramatically, many more people are involved in hospital governance though the Foundation Trusts, and while there are always still improvements to be made, peoples' experience of the NHS is generally good.
So Question 1 is: What should the last thirty years in the life of the NHS locally tell us about the approaches of the Conservative and Labour Parties to running our health services?
And Question 2 is: Labour has guaranteed that nobody should have to wait more than 18 weeks for an operation.
Under the Conservatives, waiting times in some specialties were 18 months or more. Will you retain this guarantee or is it one of the targets you want to scrap?
Every cancer specialist will tell you that the sooner a cancer is diagnosed and treatment started the better. So the next question is:
Question 3: Why will you not endorse Labour's target that the wait to see a specialist should be brought down from two weeks, which this Government has achieved, to one week in the next Parliament?
On this and other such questions, please don't say that you want to leave it to the professionals. A consultant can only see so many patients a day.
So the next question is:
Question 4: Is the real reason you want to scrap targets, because you are not prepared to fund the number of doctors, staff and equipment that are required? And do you endorse the present target that nobody should have to wait more than four hours in Accident and Emergency, or would this also be scrapped?
Question 5: Do you agree with your party's shadow minister for Health, Andrew Lansley, who has made it clear that if the Conservatives got into power, they would cut the pay of nurses and other health workers?
And finally, given the close link between social and health care:
Question 6: Will you denounce or endorse the decision of West Berkshire's Conservative Council no longer to guarantee care in the community even for those in critical need, your Cabinet member saying that in future people will have to have greater need even than that?
We are in no sense complacent about the NHS. Medical advances continue to be made and we must always strive to improve quality and safety in our comprehensive health service, so that it provides the best possible care which is freely available at the point of need. We want to hear your answers to our questions because given your party's history and the policies in successive Conservative manifestos, including that for 2005 which you helped draft, that you share Labour's vision and Labour's commitment."
Anneliese Dodds adds: "In the last few days my mother has had an emergency op, so the NHS has been very much on my mind. I think Mr Cameron has a real cheek coming to Reading, which thanks to Labour has such an excellent acute hospital, to talk about the NHS. He must be made to tell the real truth about Tory policy, and not allowed to waffle platitudes. These are questions that need an answer from the Tories, and I hope we get one."
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