Labour’s mission for the NHS falls disappointingly short, according to John Puntis, co-chair of Keep Our NHS Public. In this post, he explains that more funding to bring the UK up to the same level as France and Germany is an essential part of the solution, while relying on private companies to provide services will only create more of a two-tier system than already exists.

He outlines key points that Labour must consider:

• health care is fundamental to human well-being and a productive economy;
• much higher levels of funding than currently proposed are needed;
• more needs to be spent on public health;
• staff pay and conditions have to be improved;
• greatly increased capacity is required;
• planning is essential for meeting long term demand;
• much greater priority should be attached to using evidence-based approaches to reducing inequalities;
• service provision should be under direct control of Government rather than being outsourced, be designed together with service users, with inbuilt democratic accountability mechanism.

Read the full paper on the Keep Our NHS Public website.