Councillor Justin Tomlinson, North Swindon Conservative
Parliamentary candidate has welcomed the launch of the
Conservative Health Manifesto, "Health is a key issue
for many local residents, and we have set our a clear
manifesto on how we will deliver much needed
improvement within the Health Service."

Cleaner Hospitals

• Local inspection teams, including matrons, to have the final say in deciding whether infected wards are closed

• Managers stripped of ability to overrule matrons' decisions

• Hospitals made to publish information on hospital acquired infections department by department

Waiting lists

• Patients able to choose treatment at any independent hospital performing operations for NHS prices and to NHS standards

• Patients who want to go private for operations will be able to claim back half of the NHS cost to pay towards their bills if the price is higher than the NHS cost

• End to waiting lists by end of the next parliament - when people are diagnosed they will be able to go straight to consultants

Funding

• £34bn more a year to be spent on the NHS by the end of their first term in power

• The 28 strategic health authorities abolished, the number and functions of primary care trusts cut and some quangos and inspectorates scrapped so more money goes into "frontline" services

Targets

• All centrally-set targets for hospitals to end

• The National Institute for Clinical Excellence to lay down clinical standards

• Hospitals to run themselves and be accountable to patients and GPs for performance

Foundation hospitals

• All hospitals to become foundation hospitals - free to hire staff, set their own employment terms and borrow to invest

• Hospitals to be paid according to the treatments they deliver, not through centrally-allocated budgets

GPs

• Family doctors, rather than primary care trusts, to get responsibility for commissioning care for patients

• GPs able to manage budgets to develop services and promote effective healthcare

• GPs' out-of-hours services to be properly integrated with ambulance services, accident and emergency departments and NHS Direct

Help for chronically ill people

• Patients given a right to choose their care, drawing up individual care plans with their GPs

• National Institute for Clinical Excellence to draw up standards of healthcare for chronic conditions - trained respiratory nurses for those with asthma, for example

Cancer care

• Public information campaign to ensure the public and GPs can access cancer screening and diagnostic services quickly when risks or symptoms identified

• Targets which give some patients access to services but leave others waiting to be scrapped

Long-term care

• New Partnership Scheme so that people who pay for three years' long-term care (directly or through insurance) are guaranteed free care for the rest of their lives

More doctors and nurses

• Freedom for professionals to help recruit and retain more staff

• Training places to be expanded and bursaries offered to student nurses and midwives

Public health

• Unified service to provide public health messages based on evidence

• Parliament, not government, to appoint an independent Commission for Public Health to perform inquiries, commission research and make recommendations to ministers and the public

• Sexual health strategy targeted at young people about the risks of early or unprotected sex

• Ten-fold increase in number of residential drug rehabilitation places

• New code to be agreed with the pub industry to remove smoking from about 80% of pub space

• Every child to have the right to choose two hours of after-school sport with qualified coaches

Mental health

• New Mental Health Bill to set out framework of standards of mental healthcare and give patients, with doctors and carers, right to choose treatment

• Compulsory treatment only as last resort when patients are serious risk to themselves or others

Dentistry

• Dentists to be paid per adult patient, not fees for each service, though patients can continue "pay-as-you-go" payments if they wish