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Keep healthcare local in Strath! - for the Strathspey & Badenoch Herald

MANY 'Strathy’ readers will have received a 'Highland Health Survey’ from my local Liberal Democrat colleague, Craig Harrow.

Already, more than 1,500 people – from all over the Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber constituency that Craig is contesting in May – have responded.

One of the most significant findings from the responses so far is how much people value having healthcare provided in their local community – and not centralised in remote facilities.

The health benefits of having treatment available locally were evident during a recent visit that I paid to the excellent Ian Charles Hospital in Grantown-on-Spey.

Enabling people to recover from operations nearer to their friends and loved ones meant that those people were ready to go home more quickly.

This philosophy was backed by the Scottish Liberal Democrat conference in Aviemore last month, which endorsed a motion pledging investment in more community hospitals and community health centres.

If you haven’t already returned the survey, please do so. It is important that politicians listen, and this is a good opportunity to have your say.

The price of poverty

FAMILIES on low incomes spend approximately £1,000 a year more than those on higher incomes for essential household services such as electricity, gas, insurance and access to cash.

This 'poverty premium’ was itemised in a report by Save the Children that was published earlier this month.

Alongside the fact that the poorest 10% of people pay a higher proportion of their income in tax, this report demonstrates the appalling truth that it costs more to be poor in Britain today.

Despite progress in some areas, Tony Blair will leave – when he finally leaves – Britain a more unequal society than it was when he came into office.

Yet tackling the higher prices faced by people on low incomes has not been part of the Government’s strategy for fighting poverty.

Indeed, answers to some of my recent parliamentary questions have brought into the open that the Government has not even bothered to assess the impact of high energy prices on child poverty or the adequacy of cold weather payments.

Fuel poverty is a major part of the problem revealed by Save the Children – and it is particularly acute in the Highlands and Islands because the weather is colder, more people rely on expensive heating oil, and old houses tend to be poorly insulated.

Many people on low incomes use pre-payment meters for their gas and electricity – and so don’t benefit from direct debit discounts – costing at least £100 more a year.

I have been part of a campaign in Parliament to highlight the unfairness of pre-payment meters – and especially those people who were left with huge debts because electricity companies took their time in updating the meters as prices rose and then gave people big back-dated bills.

As a result, many companies have changed their practice. But we need a much bigger effort to tackle fuel poverty by putting prices on an equal footing for all, and a programme of energy efficiency improvements would cut costs and benefit the environment.

For most people, the best route out of poverty is work. Employment should not only mean higher income, there are demonstrable psychological and health benefits compared to a lifetime on benefits.

Yet too many people have been left on the scrapheap because the help has not been available to move back towards employment.

The fact that there are 2.7 million people on incapacity benefit when millions of disabled people say they want to work shows how far we have to go.

One of the big problems in Britain is that our benefits system is a highly complicated mix of different means-tested benefits, which means that for many people it is not at all clear that they would be better off in work.

In New Zealand, they are cutting through this by moving towards a Single Core Benefit, paid to anyone who is out of work, whatever the reason.

Extra costs that people have – for example, due to a disability or childcare costs for a parent – would be paid through a separate system, and would not be lost if a job is found, improving incentives and making the system clearer.

There is clear evidence that the voluntary, not-for-profit, and private sectors are more effective at helping people into work than the state system.

In part, this is because it is often easier for people to discuss their needs with people who are not also responsible for deciding benefit entitlement.

In Australia, they have put in place a system in which all back-to-work help after three months’ unemployment is provided by a network of voluntary and private-sector groups. The benefits are clear, with more people moved into work – and supported after finding a job – and so results in real savings for the taxpayer too.

One of the big barriers to this in Britain is that the Treasury is not able to support long-term 'spend-to-save’ measures, and so today’s penny-pinching means billions of unnecessary spending in the future.

Posted on: 21/03/2007