Westminster Life: 2025 – the year to start fixing the NHS

However, many young people have never experienced this relationship with their GP. In fact, for years now accessing any kind of GP appointment, even in an emergency, has felt like a lottery at best and impossible at worst.

Doctors and dentists were two of the biggest issues that came up during the General Election last year and in the six months I’ve been elected. That’s why I’ve made fixing the NHS one of my priorities.

I’ve already met with dentists, ambulance drivers, doctors and NHS staff. I’ve met staff and volunteers at Thorpe Hall and will always be a champion for Sue Ryder.

Keeping care within local communities is at the heart of Labour’s NHS reforms, seeing the same GP repeatedly allows for a special relationship to develop, a relationship which can help improve patient outcomes.

Appointments with the same GP facilitate an open and honest dialogue in which patients can share things in a comfortable environment that they may be less inclined to share with a stranger. This is particularly important for mental health support, where patients often need to communicate painful and complex experiences and thoughts to their GP.

There are no quick fixes for the NHS after a decade in which waiting lists soared, staff were run down and investment was cut. But, the new government is determined to get the NHS back on its feet.

We’ve started with the new Community Diagnostic Centre that is currently being built on Wellington Street. Around the country these new centres will be open 12-hours a day, 7 days a week for tests and scans to speed up treatment and cut waiting lists.

Before Christmas, the Government also announced an £800 million boost to GPs so that we can improve access in cities like ours, making it easier to get an appointment when you need it.

We also announced the biggest investment in hospices for a generation with an extra £100 million this year and next to provide the best end of life care to patients and their families in a supportive and dignified physical environment. Sue Ryder called the boost ‘very welcome’ and said ‘We’re glad they have responded to the insight from Sue Ryder and others about the challenges facing end-of-life care and people with terminal illness’.

The government understands the important role that health care workers play in local communities. As your local MP I have had the privilege of meeting many of the doctors responsible for treating you and they all tell me the same thing. The doctor–patient relationship, like the relationship we as a nation share with our NHS, is deeply personal. It is built on trust, care, compassion and familiarity.

It is finally time to start fixing the NHS. It is my hope that the next generation of young people will know their family doctor just as well as their grandparents did.