Tories must come clean on funding and health says Doughty

3.07.56pm GMT Fri 15th Jan 2010

"The Tories appear to be far too dominated by private health interests"

With news breaking of a substantial donation by private health care business interests to the Tory Party Health team Sue Doughty said "I am really worried about Tory policy on health care which locally and nationally is coming out as muddled and unclear. They need to do a lot of explaining"

Sue, who is hoping to win the Guildford seat from current Tory shadow health minister Anne Milton, added

"During the last week we have seen a whole bunch of mixed messages with Anne asking for Health Managers to "make the right decision" whatever that means, the Tory dominated Health Scrutiny Committee of Surrey County Council failing use their powers to send the flawed PCT decision on community beds up to the Secretary of State for Health with one of the Cranleigh County Councillors apparently voting both ways, and the other local councillor, Council Leader Andrew Povey prevented from representing his residents views because of his own private health care business."

Commenting on the impact of Tory Health Policy and its effects on Surrey Sue said "I worry about how this policy would affect Surrey. Everyone is aware that if the same amount of money is to continue to reach front line NHS services, this will need to be done through efficiency savings. However, the Tories are pledging to reallocate health funding from prosperous areas to areas of greater need so we have to ask what they would cut locally if this is to be happening. Its no good relying on those efficiency savings which have already been taken into account."

"One has to ask if, in fact, local health policy is being dictated by private health care companies."