Coulter says we must give Health Service back to the People
Rev Dr Robert Coulter, the North Antrim Ulster Unionist Assembly candidate, who is also the UUP Health Spokesman, said today that we need to give the national health service back to the people.
“The National Health Service in Northern Ireland must once again become the People’s Health Service and not the Bureaucrat’s Health Service. The whole focus of the NHS must become patient centered and this target driven culture must be sidelined. All targets do is create work for pen pushers.”
“What we need to be concentrating on is delivering a first class service to the people. That means real quality change. It means, for instance, freeing up the way we manage Consultants’ appointments. We need to get consultants out to the people in local Health Centres, working alongside family doctors. We need to take a lot of the bureaucracy out of specialist treatment.”
“It also means we need to manage our operating theatres more efficiently and the road blocks which prevent us developing an American and European style conveyor belt operating theatre management system. If that means we need more anesthetists then we must recruit more anesthetists. That will really reduce waiting lists.”
“We need to make the promise of the original Heath Service come true again – delivery at the point of need.”
“We also need to seriously look at the balance between front line services and the bureaucracy which has grown up around those services. We must get front line spending up and spending on administration down. Where are the gains computers were supposed to give us ? We are employing more administrative staff than ever.”
“I say give the Health Service back to the people and stop the misuse of public money.”