The ring-fencing that protects NHS spending must end, a senior Conservative has warned David Cameron.
Liam Fox, the former Defence Secretary and Shadow Health Secretary, and standard bearer of the Tory Right, said the idea that money could solve the health service’s problems had been “tested to destruction” and despite massive investment Britain still lagged behind other countries.
Citing the Mid Staffordshire scandal, he said that an obsession with targets and spending was “killing patients” and warned that there were still huge levels of waste within the NHS.
Dr Fox, who was a GP before his election to Westminster, said that the Prime Minister had been right to stand by his pre-election pledge to increase NHS spending in real terms until 2015.
However, he added that the pledge must not be repeated in the Conservatives’ next manifesto, as health was taking up an increasing share of public spending and hampering the ability of ministers to move money to other critical projects.
“I think we’ve tested to destruction the idea that simply throwing lots more money at the health service will make it better,” Dr Fox said in an interview with The Times.
“The increase over the last decade has been phenomenal and yet a lot of our health indicators lag behind other countries, particular things like stroke outcome or a lot of cancer outcomes.
“We’ve become obsessed with throughput and not outcomes and that has been hugely to the detriment of the patients in our system. If you treat the National Health Service itself as being the important entity, and not the patients, then you’re on a hiding to nothing.”
Dr Fox, who said that he would accept an invitation from Mr Cameron to return to the Government, also:
· Warned Tories not to launch personal attacks on UKIP candidates or the party’s supporters;
· Called for aid to be withdrawn from nations that did not share Britain’s values;
· Said that the Tory party would need to pledge “totemic” tax cuts in its election manifesto.
However, it is Dr Fox’s call to end the protection afforded to the NHS budget that will chime most with many Tories. It would be a risk for Mr Cameron, who spent much of the last election campaign convincing voters that the health service would be safe in his hands.
NHS expenditure has risen from about £57 billion in 2002 to more than £105 billion in 2012. The Chancellor announced spending plans last year under which NHS spending would rise to £110.4 billion by 2015-16.
“Ring-fencing anything, any budget, within a diminishing total leads to bigger and bigger distortions,” Dr Fox said. “They become, by definition, bigger and bigger proportions of the spending total . . . It also has a restricting ability inside Government to move money around when there is a particular problem.
“Anybody who has worked with or around the NHS knows there is still a huge amount of waste associated with it. It is very easy to be generous with other people’s money. The trouble is, there’s a finite amount of it.”
While he blamed Labour for creating an obsession with spending and waiting list targets, Dr Fox also said that doctors and nurses should bear some responsibility for the cases of poor care experienced by patients.
“When I look at things like Mid Staffs, I see a breakdown in an understanding of what health care is all about,” he added. “As a doctor myself, I do feel that the medical and nursing professions have some responsibility for having gone along with the whole concept of targets.
“Patients ought to be treated on the basis of their medical need. The idea that you would put patients in a different order to achieve a political outcome by arithmetic means, I find difficult to reconcile with basic ethics.”
His intervention comes after a concerted fightback from health officials over criticisms of the NHS.
Dr Clifford Mann, president of the College of Emergency Medicine, said that the complicated reforms introduced by the Government from 2011 meant that ministers ignored warnings about a looming accident and emergency crisis.
An open letter signed by the leaders of ten NHS organisations has called on politicians and others to stop making what they regard as unfair criticisms of the service. They demand “a more measured view of how the NHS is performing”.
Dr Fox resigned from the Cabinet in 2011 after being criticised for the Whitehall access he gave to his friend and unofficial adviser, Adam Werritty. He said that he was keen to return to the Tory front bench.
“I’ve said to the Prime Minister very frankly, I want us to win a Conservative majority at the general election,” he said. “I’ve got fairly strongly held views on economic policy, immigration and Europe. And I’d love to play a part in it. If he wanted me to serve on the front bench as well as the front line, I’d be happy to do so. That’s a question for him.”