Opinion: Let’s thank NHS staff and fight for a better NHS for all of us

​ All of us rely on the NHS, whether that is visiting a doctor, accessing health advice or an unplanned stay in hospital. More than ever, we should recognise the value of NHS staff in the city and the incredible pressure they are under. As a Labour councillor, I am incredibly proud of the NHS. Its values highlight the best of Britain: care based on need not what you can afford.

The NHS is personal to many of us. We all have stories to tell about NHS staff who have stepped in to provide a helping hand or world-class treatment when our families have needed it.

Over the last year, I have met with NHS workers alongside Andrew Pakes, Labour’s candidate to be Peterborough’s next MP, and fellow councillors, to hear their experiences since the pandemic. The Labour Party created the NHS in 1948 when the country was recovering from an incredibly challenging time in the aftermath of the Second World War.

Its foundation represented the British people coming together to say we can do better on healthcare, and that we should all look out for each other. The same national spirit that helped Labour create the NHS 75 years ago was evident in our response to the COVID pandemic.

We all remember clapping in appreciation of NHS and other frontline workers keeping us safe during the pandemic. But while the public have continued to support the NHS, patients and the NHS workforce have been badly let down by the government.

Waiting lists at Peterborough and Northwest Anglia NHS trust are now at record levels with over 77,000 people waiting to start treatment in April this year.

From trying to get a doctor’s appointment in person, to struggling to find an NHS dentist, the NHS in Peterborough is struggling to cope. I am also really concerned about growing waiting lists of mental health support, especially for our young people. They deserve better. We deserve better!

The government will try to blame the war in Ukraine and COVID for extra pressures on the NHS, but that simply does not wash. The NHS was already under pressure from staff shortages before the pandemic. These pressures have not been helped by the chaos in government with a revolving door of Prime Ministers and the biggest fall in living standards for seventy years.

We need a government focussed on the long-term rather than the next week. Ministers need to stop blaming hard-pressed doctors and nurses for industrial action and start listening to professionals in the frontline. The immediate big issues to fix are the seven million patients on waiting lists. People rightly frustrated about not being able to see their GP, along with chronic staff shortages right across the NHS.

But for now, I’ll finish where I started by saying “Thank you” to all the NHS staff serving our city and beyond.