Westminster Life: Fixing the NHS is my top priority
For most of us, our GP is our first port of call when we are worried about our health, writes Peterborough MP Andrew Pakes.
But having heard from so many families, and from my own experiences, I know that the ‘eight o’clock scramble’ means securing an appointment often feels like more of a wish than a guarantee.
It is the same for NHS dentists. The lack of NHS dental provision is one of the biggest issues in my email inbox.
The knock-on effects of a poorly functioning NHS are devastating. Serious conditions going undiagnosed, backlogs building up and, nationally, millions of people are waiting more than a month to be seen, often in pain and discomfort. It can’t go on.
GPs and NHS staff do incredible work to look after us and our loved ones when we need them. But despite their heroic efforts, I am really concerned that the last Conservative Government has left surgeries over-stretched and under-staffed.
The figures are stark, we’ve lost over 2,000 GPs since 2015 and, shockingly, 350 practices across the country have closed.
The record of the last government on general health is also stark. Over the last 5 years, Peterborough saw NHS waiting lists go up, NHS dentists leave, pressure on mental health services and the continuing struggle to see a GP grows apace. We have a long- promised Community Diagnostic Centre to help with scans and routine tests, but it has yet to be delivered.
Only this week, I met with partners over plans to take GP services away from the Werrington Health Centre, a worry that many residents have raised with me and the local councillors.
It can’t go on like this. Last week, the Government published its report card on the state of the NHS, a study undertaken by leading surgeon Lord Ari Darzi. Darzi’s report is clear. We have just been through the ‘most austere decade in NHS history’ with the capital budget frequently raised to plug the gap on day-to-day funding.
Darzi estimates England invested £37bn less in health since 2010 than if it had matched levels in rich- country peers. Its weakened state meant the NHS had to cancel far more routine care than other countries did during the Covid-19 pandemic.
This is why the new Labour government has made fixing the NHS a priority. As part of the first steps, Peterborough will share in 12 new dentists to provide extra NHS appointments. We are a national priority for dentists given the broken system we inherited from the last government.
We’ve got a 10-year plan of change and modernization along with a strategy to train the next generation of NHS staff and reform primary care to deliver better access to GPs, moving care out of hospital and into the community as well as shifting the focus to prevention.
We will speed up treatment and confront the pressures in GP surgeries, ending the ‘non-dom’ tax status to pay to train 7,500 more doctors, create 10,000 extra nursing and midwifery clinical placements every year. The aim is to bring back the family doctor and give patients real choice once more.
But this will take time. I will always fight for the NHS in Peterborough starting with new NHS dental provision. Too often Peterborough has been at the back of the queue when it comes to new investment. My job is to change that.