Gordon Brown visited a health clinic as new figures showed the NHS to be on an improved financial footing.
Read the transcript for the film below:
Gordon Brown:
Hello. Nice to see you. You’ve got an early start, haven’t you? Nice to see you. Good to meet you.
Riverside Employee:
My receptionist, Tim.
Gordon Brown:
Good to see you. I think the important thing is that the NHS is now yielding both results and efficiency savings. And when we have these savings, we are able to put more money into other priorities. That is getting more access, and we’re talking here to people at a GP surgery where more people can get more access at weekends and out of hours in the future. We’re also talking about tackling the hospital infections, MRSA and C.difficile and there’ll be more money to do that. And when the spending review comes in the next few months we’ll be able to set the pattern for an expansion of healthcare services over the next few years. I think people do understand that the Health Service is better, getting better, but it’s got to get even better in the years to come. That’s why the issues are going to be: Can I get to see my GP at weekends? Can I get to see my GP out of hours? Can I be sure that when I go into hospital that I get the best personal care possible? Can I be sure that the targets that have been set so that I can get from my GP to the operation in the time that’s been promised? That’s going to be met as well. And these are the questions that I think people want answered. And we’re doing better but we’ve got to do even better still and what extra money we’re saving through more efficiency, we will put it into improving the service. And I think people will see announcements about the improvement of the service, more access, more money to tackle the hospital infections, more money to make sure that people have, in hospitals, the best personal care as well as the best cure. That will be happening over the next few months.
Alan Johnson:
We’ve got a proper grasp of finances. We’re putting more money in. We’ve trebled the amount of resources going into the NHS. But we have to ensure that we stay within our budget. And this means that we’ve got a surplus - 1.3% of our total budget - so just about where it should be. And we can spend that money on additional services. It belongs to the NHS and we can spend that money now on reducing waiting times, on tackling infection, on improving access.
Gordon Brown:
The Health Service has 80,000 more nurses with more than 20,000 more doctors. We’re building about 100 new hospitals, many of them completed, many of them still to be completed. We are putting more money into the specialities - cancer, particularly, but of course dealing with heart disease, dealing with strokes. All these things are happening but we will do better.
And the whole purpose of the review that we’re having into the Health Service over these next few weeks is that when we announce our spending for the years to come, we will show that there is more access for people, there are more opportunities for people to get a better service. Personal care as well as cure is better in the Health Service and people can see that the results of better use of money is in better services for the patient.
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