Over 10,000 jobs could go as Labour plans to focus more on front line services in the health service.
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00:00There is no doubt that the NHS is in a dreadful state. We're talking about a
00:04sector, if you want to call it that, or an organisation that is in sort of
00:08control of everyone's health. Now of course there's lots of complexities
00:11associated with that and indeed we're having sort of an ageing population so
00:15the sort of the incidence of ill health that affect people are
00:19increasing. Therefore of course there's a lot to sort of to take on
00:23board. This is a multi-billion pound organisation, north of sort of
00:28140 billion a year, so it's a major sort of drain on the sort of the public
00:32finances, for good reason, but there is no doubt about the fact that the
00:3714 years of the sort of the previous Conservative government starved of
00:40resources, although they would claim that they put money into it. But hey, you
00:44know, this is an organisation that undoubtedly needs far more money putting
00:47into it. But of course we had an election last year. It was, if you
00:51like, an elephant in the room. You know, did we want to pay more? Well, we were
00:55never asked the question for the NHS. I think people would agree to it, but of
00:58course they have to sort of see a vast improvement to sort of make it worth the
01:02while. Which brings us to the here and now. NHS England was created by the
01:07Conservatives in 2012 and it seemed to be, if you like, a bureaucratic over-society.
01:12It was, if you like, to try and sort of push that responsibility out so of course
01:16government did not have direct control. Clearly the Labour government believe
01:20that they can make the sort of the changes they need to, which I believe
01:23will have to be pretty radical and indeed will have to be sort of pretty
01:26rapid because of course people want to see, you know, to use that as a word
01:29again, an improvement. They're able to get access to the services with
01:33greater sort of immediacy than is the case now because of course if Labour have
01:37any hope of winning the next election, improving the NHS is going to be one of
01:40those manifesto promises that they made last July. Well, as you can imagine, while
01:46Labour argues that reform is necessary, in response Conservative health
01:51spokesperson Dr Caroline Johnson has criticised the Labour Party's approach
01:55arguing that the proposed reforms lack clarity and could lead to further
02:00instability within the NHS. She emphasised the need for a comprehensive
02:05plan that addresses current challenges without causing additional disruption to
02:10health care services. And of course the reality is it all comes down to hard
02:15cash and of course at the moment we're in a sort of period, if you like, of
02:18austerity. You know, there is the sort of latest news that the economy sort of
02:21shrunk in January so less money going into the system. This government have
02:25inheritors of, you know, a big set of problems and the NHS is one of the
02:29biggest.