Tony Blair’s foreign policy woes mask some very significant changes and improvements in domestic matters. Employment is at levels not seen for decades, interest rates are low and with low inflation, consumer goods are fairly cheap by historical comparison.
One area of change is health, which has received massive investment. I use the word change, rather than improvement deliberately, because although things have got better in many respects, whether all the investment leads to a radically different and improved health system has yet to be seen. A few sums will explain the issues better- the NHS budget for 2002-3 was £65.4 billion, a massive £25bn higher than it was in 1999-2000. The government announced a five-year programme of investment in the 2002 Budget. As a result of this, the UK NHS budget will reach £87.2bn by 2005-06 and £105.6bn by 2007-08. With investment at this level, the standard for measuring success should surely be very high indeed.
It is important, however, that the NHS does not become a bottomless pit. One way of making sure it doesn’t is by investing in public health. If people are healthier, they will have less need to contact health services. Another issue is to ensure that the money is well targeted to meeting genuine health needs. The NHS would certainly become a bottomless pit if, in furtherance of the ‘therapeutic state’, the extra cash flowing around is used to medicalise all kinds of things.
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