A bold and ambitious plan to deliver better health services for people in Workington was raised with Ministers in Parliament this week by the town’s MP, Josh MacAlister.
Health outcomes in Workington are poor and local services are fragmented. The government’s manifesto promise to deliver new Neighbourhood Health Centres to join up services across an area provides an opportunity to deliver real change and better services for patients in Workington.
To capitalise on this opportunity, Josh brought together the leaders of local health and care services to develop a plan for a ‘Workington Health Zone’ to integrate health and care services in Workington, with the goal of improving access and outcomes for patients and cutting out waste and bureaucracy. The report’s summary states it as “a transformative, community-centred neighbourhood health and wellbeing model designed to address Workington’s unique healthcare challenges”, which “envisions a fully integrated system that merges health, social care, and third-sector services to deliver tailored, efficient, and proactive care”.
Josh has been working for several months to secure the resources to deliver this new health zone, which local service leaders estimate will cost up to £4 million over three years to set up and implement before becoming self-sustaining within existing budgets. Last week he met with Health Minister Stephen Kinnock to give him a copy of the plan and this week he raised it in Parliament at Health Questions. In response, Health Minister Ashley Dalton said:
“I would be delighted to work with my hon. Friend on the Government’s commitment to delivering a neighbourhood health service that reinforces integrated working for the NHS, local government, social care and wider partners as the norm.”
Josh said:
“The people of Workington deserve first rate health and care services, but that isn’t what we have at the moment after 14 years of a Conservative government which left out NHS and social care services on their knees.
“I want Workington to be one of the first towns to benefit from the government’s plan to introduce new Neighbourhood Health Centres, which is why I pulled together the leaders of our local health and care services to come up with a bold and innovative plan to seize this opportunity.
“What they came up with is a credit to the ambition they have for our town. It has the potential to be transformative for the people of Workington. I have put copies in the hands of ministers, senior officials at the Department of Health & Social Care and the leaders of our local Integrated Care Board and will be seeking every chance I can to raise it with decision makers until we secure the funding that is needed.
“We’re already delivering change, with more GPs and NHS dental appointments and lower waiting lists. There is a long way to go, but we’re on the right track to fix our broken NHS thanks to the new investment and difficult choices made by the government at the last budget.”
The proposal would not just bring services together but also deliver a series of goals, including:
- Ensuring every patient who needs an urgent GP appointment gets one within 48 hours, benefiting approximately 1,435 patients each year.
- Reducing avoidable hospital admissions by 20%, keeping 600 people out of hospital every year.
- Improve patient satisfaction with local health services by 25%.
This comes as the government celebrates recruiting an additional 1,500 GPs across the country since the election, reducing hospital waiting lists every month since the new government took office, and rolling out hundreds of thousands of extra urgent NHS dental appointments across the country. All thanks to the additional £26 billion put into the NHS at the autumn 2024 budget.
Josh MacAlister MP 