Restore Britain's NHS and healthcare policy

The economic plan says the NHS "will always remain free at the point of need for citizens". Non-British nationals would be charged a market-rate tariff at the point of use, on the principle that "ours is a national health service, not an international one". Emergency care would remain free for anyone who needs it.

This links to the party's immigration and welfare policy. The immigration Objective says Indefinite Leave to Remain currently gives free access to benefits and the NHS, and would cancel the benefits attached to it. The economic plan says legal migrants on visas or ILR would receive no benefits other than A&E care. The party estimates that charging non-citizens, together with tax relief for private care, would save or raise around £20bn a year. See welfare reform and immigration and border control.

The Objective says "medical school caps will be demolished", so that talented young British people can train in medicine. The NHS would then be expected to employ them in preference to overseas staff. The party says it would still accept "ultra-high skilled" migrants to work in the health service, but opposes large-scale low-skilled migration.

Private healthcare costs would become tax-deductible at the individual's marginal rate of income tax. The party argues that private providers take pressure off the NHS and expects the relief to be "fiscally positive" by reducing demand on the health service. It describes this as a matter of "fiscal pragmatism": freeing capacity in public hospitals by making private care cheaper for those who choose it.

The economic plan argues that an organisation's efficiency depends on its incentives, and that public bodies can perform well if built on the right ones. For the NHS it proposes decentralising decisions wherever possible and giving managers both the authority to innovate and responsibility for results. Organisations should reward improvement and let successful practices spread, while ineffective ones face consequences instead of automatic funding. It cites Singapore's Temasek and Norway's Equinor as state-owned bodies that perform well on commercial principles, and says other countries provide better care at lower cost.

Health is one of three areas, with defence and debt interest, excluded from the party's proposed three-year freeze on departmental budgets.

The Objective promises free car parking for NHS staff, patients and visitors "on tight permits". It does not set out how the permit system would work.

Separately, the party's Policy on School Fines (opens in a new tab) floats priority afternoon GP appointments for families as a possible future policy, so that children miss less school for medical appointments.