Can we look forward to a better health service from tomorrow morning?

Whichever political party (or combination) is in charge of UK citizens' health for the next 5 years, there are some very large, and very fundamental questions they - and Britain - need to address. All parties are, of course, pledging that the NHS is a priority. One party has promised an injection of funds with a specific figure attached to it: £6bn a year. While this would of course be a good thing, there are two problems with this or anything similar.

One is the figure itself. To put it into context, £6bn represents slightly more than the NHS currently spends on one condition (diabetes) alone. In other words it's a token and little more. If it happens it will, unfortunately, barely be noticed. If we want to make a real difference with money alone, we need to be thinking of sums very much larger than £6bn. And that means a conversation on all sorts of uncomfortable topics, ranging perhaps from very much higher levels of taxation to the potential greater involvement of the private sector, for example, in Britain's health system.

The second problem is the idea that money and resources are the only issue. One of the biggest problems for the NHS is its very own systems and functions, its practices and culture, and its ability to communicate efficiently, even with itself. These are all problematic in the NHS, the result is a great deal of money wasted, and these have to be addressed by better management as well as better resources. The responsibility for these structural issues lies at the door of successive governments. NHS managers can only do what governments make it possible for them to do, in the form of resources, direction and leadership. 

So perhaps tomorrow morning we can look ahead to 5 years during which we begin at last to tone down our national practice of venerating our health service at the cost of repairing it. And instead think how a service designed for the 1950's can become world class before its centenary comes along. It will take real leadership and vision from government. And it will mean everyone who believes in a health system that's affordable, available to all, and of the highest quality, accepting that the world has changed since 1948. 

Simon Carbery, co-founder ELFy