Giving access to life-transforming drugs
This week Health Secretary Matt Hancock announced a deal which will provide Orkambi and other lifesaving Cystic Fibrosis drugs on the NHS.
The responses to his announcement are incredibly moving.
A mother told the Health Secretary he has “given thousands a future” and posted a picture of her grinning son, Rufus, tucked up in his hospital bed.
A father tweeted “Matt Hancock, you are the man. Thank you, thank you for all your hard work we know it has been far from easy. Well done sir!”.
A woman who suffers from cystic fibrosis told her followers on social media that she looks forward to seeing how Orkambi transforms the lives of others, because the drug (accessed privately) is the reason she has got this far.
As Olivia Utley points out here the Conservatives have actually done far more to support the NHS than we are often given credit for.
Particularly by Labour who regularly base election campaigns on largely or sometime wholly fictional scare stories about how the Conservatives are supposedly about to sell off the NHS.
Possibly the most egregiously dishonest Labour campaign of this type was the despicable "babies will die, babies will be brain-damaged" campaign which they fought in the Copeland by election.
The responses to his announcement are incredibly moving.
A mother told the Health Secretary he has “given thousands a future” and posted a picture of her grinning son, Rufus, tucked up in his hospital bed.
A father tweeted “Matt Hancock, you are the man. Thank you, thank you for all your hard work we know it has been far from easy. Well done sir!”.
A woman who suffers from cystic fibrosis told her followers on social media that she looks forward to seeing how Orkambi transforms the lives of others, because the drug (accessed privately) is the reason she has got this far.
As Olivia Utley points out here the Conservatives have actually done far more to support the NHS than we are often given credit for.
Particularly by Labour who regularly base election campaigns on largely or sometime wholly fictional scare stories about how the Conservatives are supposedly about to sell off the NHS.
Possibly the most egregiously dishonest Labour campaign of this type was the despicable "babies will die, babies will be brain-damaged" campaign which they fought in the Copeland by election.
Here is a point which Conservatives need to take on board -
it didn't work.
Labour lost this seat, which they had previously held for more than seventy years, in that by election.
This proves that it is possible for Conservatives to fight back against Labour's myths on the NHS. But we can't just ignore what they are saying or assume that we can ignore health as "Labour's issue." We must make it our issue by proving that we can deliver more on the NHS than Labour.
The Conservatives are spending significantly more on health than Labour promised at the last election - and we are not just spending more money but looking at how to make sure each pound delivers better patient care.
Giving better access to life-saving and life transforming drugs is part of that and we must seek every opportunity to do more.
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