Lib Dem Leader Nick Clegg sets out vision for a people's health service

Liberal Democrat Leader Nick Clegg has outlined his vision for the NHS, setting out plans to give communities genuine control over local health services, freed from Whitehall, and providing for older people with personal care needs.

The proposals update Liberal Democrat policy on personal care for the elderly based on the projections of the 2006 Wanless report on the future needs for social care in England.

The Policy Paper, which will go to the Party's Spring Conference in March, details:

• Introducing a 'Care Guarantee' by spending £2 billion on a personal care payment for all elderly people requiring care, based on need and not their ability to pay. It would also set out carers' rights including the right to complain about unsatisfactory care.
• A 'Patient Contract' guaranteeing every citizen access to a high standard of core healthcare entitlements within maximum waiting times. To make sure that the NHS delivers, patients would have the right to receive private treatment, paid for by the NHS, if the waiting time was not met.
• Directly elected local Health Boards instead of unaccountable Primary Care Trusts. This would put people in charge of decisions about their local health services.
• Roll out the use of direct payments and individual budgets for people with chronic, long term conditions, for mental health services and support for those with learning disabilities.

Commenting, Nick Clegg said:

"I am calling for a people's health service which puts individuals in the driving seat of their own healthcare.

"Sixty years after it was founded, the NHS is in desperate need of a new direction. The battle for extra investment has largely been won, but the service we are getting is simply not good enough.

"Cancer survival is below the European average and health inequalities have widened under Labour. Many older people are not getting the personal care they so desperately require. We are letting down those most in need.

"The question is not 'how much', but 'how we spend the money' so that everyone gets the healthcare they need."

Nick Clegg also visited an activity centre run by Age Concern Kingston where he outlined his plans for a Personal Care Payment. He said:

"We are the first Party with serious plans to end the punishing poverty which afflicts the many elderly people forced to pay for their personal care entirely out of their own pockets.

"We would introduce a personal care payment based on need, not on your ability to pay. It simply isn't possible to be committed to a free and fair NHS without ending this scandalous injustice."