Blair outlines four-year plan to revive NHS

The day after the chancellor Gordon Brown signalled an extra &\#163;2bn would be pumped into the NHS, Tony Blair announced there would be a detailed four-year plan of improvement targets to be released in July as a 'timetable for delivery'. Also, a special cabinet committee dedicated to the NHS would be created to help 'modernisation' take place. Mr Blair's unprecedented statement on a domestic topic in Parliament echoed his address to the NHS's 50th anniversary conference (News, July 10, 1998) when he commented that the number of cataract operations performed as day cases could range between 20 per cent and 95 per cent depending on where the patient lived in Britain. His impatience on varying degrees of service to patients has continued and he called on health professions to rise to five themed challenges of 'partnership', 'performance', 'professions' 'patient care' and 'prevention'. Best practice methods are likely to be highlighted in the July report, in return for the Government's financial injection. One such initiative is the Ayrshire-based cataract care project presented at last year's National Optometic Conference (News Analysis, October 22) which has cut waiting times from 12 months to four weeks. In his budget speech, Mr Brown said that by 2004, spending on the health service would have risen by 35 per cent, to &\#163;68.7bn annually.