Health

This year we have seen a country where years of cuts to the NHS have left a threadbare service, with over-stretched and under-paid staff and disgraceful inequality in terms of the ability to live long and healthy lives.

A Green Future for Health would build on the founding principles of the NHS - a universal, free health service - rebuilt in the aftermath of the pandemic and financed to cope with the immense backlog of postponed treatments and worsening mental health crisis.

We will support community-led services and put an end to privatisation to remove any profit motive within healthcare.

Pandemic recovery and increased funding

• The Green Party supports local test-and-trace systems, managed by those who understand the communities they serve. We are appalled by the way this government has given billions to their cronies for a system that never worked.
• We applaud the scientists who have provided us with vaccines in record breaking time, and those who have ensured a smooth roll-out of the vaccination programme, but we also support calls for a public inquiry into the government’s handling of the pandemic, which has resulted in tens of thousands of avoidable deaths and left families grieving for lost ones.

• The Green Party would increase funding for the NHS by at least £6bn each year by cancelling schemes such as the government’s road building project (£5bn per year), and would support the trade union campaign for a 15% pay increase for health care workers.

Mental health services

• The coronavirus has exposed the inadequacy of mental health services in the UK. We would focus our funding to enable major improvements to ensure mental health has equal importance alongside physical health.
• Mental health therapy services would be accessible by anyone who needs them within 28 days of a request, with specific provisions made for more particular difficulties experienced by BAME communities, children, adolescents, LGBTQIA+ members and older people.
• The Greens would provide stronger powers to Health and Wellbeing boards to represent the wishes of the public within the NHS as a first step towards the full reinstatement of a public health service with no role for private companies.

An end to privatisation

• We would replace private sector involvement in the NHS with community-led services. The implementation of a ‘bottom up’ approach within the local authority setup would see services planned and provided without contracts through Health Boards.
• An end to the internal market must also be enacted and a focus on Caroline Lucas’ NHS Reinstatement Bill deployed to help tackle the issues within the healthcare system.