Letter text:
Sir, Melanie Phillips is right. The NHS is not safe in any of the main parties’ hands. That’s the point the National Health Action Party has been making – that the £22 billion of “efficiency savings” are impossible cuts.
However the “eye-watering amounts” that she claims successive UK governments have poured into the NHS equal just 65 per cent to 90 per cent of the annual health spending of comparable European countries reliant on social insurance. The Netherlands made the switch she advocates in 2006; McKinsey now reports that “the costs of healthcare in the Netherlands are soaring”. Dutch patients report worrying levels of insurance company disputes; many patients do not seek treatment on cost grounds, and some are not covered at all.
The NHS is consistently ranked by experts as the most cost-effective and fairest health system in the world. It is not unaffordable, just underfunded.
Dr Clive Peedell, National Health Action Party candidate for Witney
Dr Clive Peedell 