NHS needs a Royal Commission to deliver health system fit for the 21st century

Lord Saatchi, a leading Parliamentarian and health campaigner, calls for the creation of the Royal Commission into the future of the National Health Service in a new report published by the Centre for Policy Studies on Sunday February 19 2017.

As the country emerges from another winter NHS crisis – and with no agreement over the depth, the causes, or thge possible solutions to that crisis, Maurice Saatchi descrbies the NHS as the ultimate “Post-Truth World”. He lists 69 “Alternative Facts” in his Centre for Policy Studies pamphlet An NHS Royal Commission – From fighting fires to a lasting settlement.

Governments working within the constrains of the five-year electoral cycle cannot risk mooting radical reform of the current system. Only a Royal Commission can look beyond the current problems and consider dispassionately the long-term challenges facing the NHS: an ageing population, social care, funding, the growing prevelance of financially draining chronic disease, the impact of poverty on health outcomes, the effects of Brexit on labour supply, and the growing cost of innovation and funding.

Lord Saatchi comments:

“The timing has never been better. We have the finest medical minds in the world, and an impeccable ‘medical history’. If they really believed it was Her Majesty’s wish that they would all sit down together to bring forward a good plan for the nation’s health, it would happen.

It will not be hard. It will be very easy. All the Royal Commission has to do is to find out what people expect and give it to them.

All it needs is a blank sheet of paper and a pencil.”

Click here to read Lord Saatchi’s full report.

SUPPORT IN THE MEDIA

Maurice Saatchi - Sunday, 19th February, 2017