Manifesto Day 1: NHS

Anyone taking part in todays challenge could you tag your photos 'Gaz Challenge', and I'll award a favourite for my favourite each day. Woop, what a prize eh? On with the plans

Reform the NHS. That's the message our coalition party want to convince us is the right message. Make GP's responsible for their budgets, and where they buy their medicines from. Power to the local area, the big society at work on a very real level.
Bullshit. Our Doctors train to do one thing: make people better. Their level of expertise exists in their surgery, passing on the benefit of their knowledge for the good of the community. Reforming the NHS and making them middle management is like removing good honest coppers from the streets and placing them in a solicitor?s office behind a desk.

The management of the NHS must remain away from the GP's. However rewards for NHS management should match rewards for management at any level: the people who administer treatment are the ones who should receive the financial benefits.
My party would not be looking to reform the NHS, but we would be looking at increasing its budget to allow for better treatment. Nurses and 'low level' staff (the true heroes of the NHS) would obtain an inflation matching pay rise, a phenomenon not seen recently in the UK. The health service has to become an employer that people are willing to work for, and therefore reap the rewards of their loyalty.

We also believe that whilst an individual is in hospital their relatives and loved ones should not be charged to park whilst visiting. Therefore we propose to introduce a system where each patient can give parking permits to up to four visitors a day. These permits will be distributed on the ward, and allow free access to the car park for the duration of a visit. However parking fees will remain for any visitors over the allocation and anyone visiting the hospital for other purposes.

We must make savings to allow our policies to be met and therefore we also propose to cut funding in some areas. Our first big change would be for non-essential operations such as tattoo removal or cosmetic surgery: these facilities will no longer be available on the NHS. We aim to treat illness and disease, but we cannot afford to reduce the breasts of patients who say their life is a 'misery'. It may well be, but the time and funds we spend making your life 'more bearable' could be spent actually saving someone?s life. We must be tough.

We aim to redistribute the money currently being made available for such things as free prescriptions for certain people. Under the current system students, the elderly and those out of work can claim prescriptions for free: the hard working taxpayer cannot. We aim to redress this balance slightly.

Firstly free prescriptions for over 60's would remain free of charge. This will give us the opportunity to help the older generation. We also aim to give free prescriptions to those who need their medication to remain alive. Instead of classing the type of person, we intend to classify the type of drug being given out. Anything termed 'life saving' (heart medication, etc) will now be free of charge to all individuals.

However students and those on jobseekers allowance must look to contribute more to the system. As a collection of people whose current contribution to the economy via taxes isn't extensive, we will now look to charge £3.50 per prescription to this band of people. For those on jobseekers this will be deductable from their benefits.

Finally smokers are a drain on the NHS and we must look at a more effective way of controlling the issue. As a smoker myself I acknowledge that people who choose to smoke must be aware of the wider implications of their decision. I propose to put 5p on every tobacco product in tax, be it cigarettes, tobacco or even papers and filters. A small portion of this revenue will be funnelled directly into an anti smoking campaign, and used to fund workers in this area based in local GP practices. We must strive to become a nation of non smokers.

There are 13m smokers in the UK (and assuming they buy 1 tobacco product a day) which means our new proposal would bring around £650,000 per day in additional revenue, or £4.5m per week. This would equate to an extra £234m a year: a majority of the funding would go directly into upgrading our current hospital network. A process of study would take place to ascertain which hospitals currently operating require additional funding or facilities. It'll be nice in a country where smoking has such an impact, that finally we can give something back.

The NHS is a jewel in the crown of Great Britain and must remain so. However it must almost be vigilant and reactive to abuse. We have to ensure that the NHS directs its funds to areas that require them: the treatment of the British tax payer.

I'd also make sure that the most attractive nurses had to wear those fancy dress 'slutty nurse' uniforms as well, y'know the plastic / leather type ones that leave little to the imagination. Oh and on every ward I'd ensure there was a twenty eight stone wart faced matron (like in Carry On films) who everyone is scared of. I'd also put semolina back on the menu, and lumpy custard.

Plus I'd make euphanasia compulsory on anybody who openly admits to buying X Factor winners singles at Christmas, and I'd use their organs for transplants into people with impeccable taste ;)