Vote NHS: Labour’s health guarantees

By Alex Smith / @alexsmith1982

At a press conference at Labour head office this morning, Andy Burnham launched the new VoteNHS website to support the “target cancer” campaign. The campaign aims to save up to 10,000 lives a year by backing a pledge to create a new NHS guarantee of cancer diagnosis within one week of GP referral, allowing patients to be tested and told their results in just seven days.

Burnham said that at the 2005 election, Labour promised to bring down waiting times to a 18 week maximum and to half MRSA rates. People said it could not be done, he stated. But it was achieved.

In an email to Labour supporters this afternoon, the health secretary followed up, saying:

“Some things are too important to be left to chance, and cancer is one of them. So we want to guarantee that if your doctor thinks you need a specialist cancer test, you will have it, with results, within just one week. This guarantee will save up to 10,000 lives each year.

On VoteNHS.com you can see how targets and guarantees have cut waiting lists in your area – and read how fast and effective diagnosis played a key part in people’s own battles with cancer.

With so much at stake, it is time for the Tories to drop their stubborn opposition to NHS guarantees and admit that the quicker we can diagnose and treat cancer, the more lives we can save.”

That final mesage was illustrated with a new image, highlighting that David Cameron would scrap the cancer guarantee:

VoteNHS will support this campaign, by comparing waiting lists before and after the cancer targets and showing the improvements that have taken place in every part of the country in the past 13 years:

It also carries moving personal testimonies:

The Party hopes VoteNHS will have as successful a reach as Ed’s Pledge and the Back the Ban campaign, which 14,000 people signed up to in just one day in December.