David Cameron speech on NHS reforms

David Cameron speech on NHS reforms; Cameron speech SOT- We're approaching the European average spending on health. I just think it's time we had the confidence to say we should have some of the best health outcomes in Europe too. Saying this doesn't make you anti-NHS it makes you pro-NHS - because you want to make things better for everyone. So that's the first reason we need change - to make the NHS better today. The second reason is that if we don't modernise now, we face a crisis tomorrow. The NHS is facing enormous financial pressures in the years ahead - driven by rising demand and the cost of new drugs and technologies. Let's take demand first. hat's in part down to the achievement of our health system - people are living longer. For the first time ever there are more pensioners in this country than children under 16. And the number of people aged over 85 is set to double in the next twenty years.Just think about what that will mean. Every hour the NHS deals with more than 25,000 people think how many of them are elderly, and then consider with our population ageing at the rate it is how those numbers could rise dramatically. And the type of care and treatment they need is changing too. In the old days, healthcare was often about lifesaving treatment at a moment of crisis. So, responding medically to heart attacks and strokes. Treatments for diseases like cancer. Today, the big killers of the past are becoming the lifelong conditions of the future. Between 1978 and 2008, the death rate from coronary heart disease fell by over seventy-five percent. That is fantastic news for families - indeed for our whole country - but there are clear financial implications. Already three quarters of the health and care budget goes on long term chronic conditions - and the pressure is going to get bigger. In just eight years, the number of people with three or more long-term health conditions is set to rise by thirty per cent. Indeed, by 2050, the number of over sixty...