Improving health services across West Cumbria was one of the five pledges I made to local people before last year’s General Election. It’s been one of my top priorities as your MP over the last ten months and I want to share the progress that we’re making locally and the government is making nationally.
I don’t need to remind anyone that our NHS was on its knees last summer when the new government took over. We made clear that fixing it would be a ten year project. But we also set several ‘first steps’ targets voters could measure us against.
I’m pleased to say that these first steps have already been delivered and exceeded. Two million more NHS appointments, waiting lists down every month, 1,500 more GPs, 700,000 more urgent NHS dental appointments and a big investment in GP practices. Promises made, promises kept.
What does this mean for us? The waiting list in north and west Cumbria is down by nearly 1,000, with more people getting treatment more quickly. We’ve gone from being 15 GPs short of our required number at the worst point under the Conservatives to only being five short now. That’s still five too few but ten more than we had! Several of our local GP practices secured government funding last week to improve and expand their surgeries so more patients can be seen. And nearly 1,500 more urgent NHS dental appointments are being delivered in north and west Cumbria this year.
We’re only getting started and we need to see much more improvement, that’s why I’m fighting for funding to deliver my plan to transform primary care services in Workington through a new Neighbourhood Health Centre. And I’m pushing to get a new Urgent Dental Access Centre in West Cumbria, which would deliver thousands more urgent NHS dental appointments.
We are only able to deliver this change because of the tough decisions made in last year’s Budget, which gave us the money to pump £26 billion extra into the health service. There is finite money available. You told me before the General Election that getting the economy back on track and lifting our NHS off its knees were your most important concerns and delivering those does involve trade offs.
Not everyone is happy with the trade offs. I get that. But I ask you to consider the alternatives. The Conservatives took our NHS to the brink of collapse and had no plan to rescue it. And Reform UK have been absolutely clear that they want to end the tax-payer funded NHS and move to an insurance based model. Only Labour have a plan to fix our NHS. It is early days yet but we are making progress.
Josh MacAlister MP 