The former deputy chair of the Conservative party has suggested a referendum allowing the public to determine how much they are willing to spend on the NHS.
Robert Halfon believes that the UK public should be able to vote every ten years in a referendum, deciding how much to increase spending on healthcare above inflation.
In an article on the ConservativeHome website, Halfon wrote: “The guarantee would ensure that in a new 10-year plan for the NHS, spending would always go up in real terms – according to the needs of the population.
“The public would then be able to decide how much they would increase funding beyond that real-terms rise. They would be given various options that would translate to, for example, however many extra nurses, doctors, treatments, or hospitals their spending would buy.”
The MP did not worry about the British public voting for the lower option given in the referendum.
“(I do not) believe for a moment that people would always vote for the lower option, given that, apart from the super rich, the vast majority of the population use the NHS”.
“If the new NHS tax was hypothecated, they would understand what they were getting for their money,” he wrote. “Because the public would have a real decision-making role, it would decrease the complaints that the NHS was not getting the resources it needed.”
Halfon’s article comes as Prime Minister Theresa May faces further calls from MPs to address the increasing strain on the NHS. Jeremy Corbyn has called on the government to inject an emergency budget for the NHS over the winter period.
“There must be no mistake: the NHS crisis is being caused by the political choices of this Tory Government,” said the Labour leader.
“We simply can’t go on like this. The Government must bring forward an emergency budget for the NHS to give it the money it needs and end this crisis.
“The Tories are failing our NHS. Labour built the NHS 70 years ago and it will be the next Labour government that secures our NHS for the next 70 years.”