Yvette Cooper MP: Making our NHS fit for the future

Yvette Cooper MP writes: We all depend on our local networks of GPs, dentists, hospitals and health centres to care for us, but they have been run down for years.

Turning things round isn’t a quick fix but it is vital. That’s why the newly elected Labour government has made the NHS a top priority – and is involving staff and patients across the country in drawing up a ten-year health strategy to make our NHS fit for the future.

From our GP surgeries to Pontefract Hospital and Pinderfields, our local NHS is under strain.

Many people still struggle with getting an appointment – ringing up at 8am but still being stuck in an endless queue.

Waiting times for many specialist appointments or treatment have gone through the roof too.

One Altofts resident told me she was waiting two years for what was supposed to be urgent treatment.

One Castleford woman told me her husband had already been waiting three months for what should have been an emergency operation.

Because it can be so hard to get a GP appointment, more people also end up in A&E – but that has meant people in Pinderfields being treated on trolleys in corridors because they get overwhelmed.

Straight after the election, the Labour government commissioned a report from top NHS surgeon and former minister Lord Darzi.

He found that many of the problems that our NHS faces have come from the last Conservative government’s expensive and damaging reorganisation.

He also found that waiting times are up, investment in early intervention and prevention to stop people getting seriously ill in the first place is down, and that the health of the nation has really deteriorated over the past 15 years – with a big increase in the number of people living with multiple long-term conditions.

That’s why this government is determined to turn things round.

When the Tory Government brought in reforms to the NHS it was a mad top down reorganisation which ignored staff, wasted money, and made problems far worse.

Labour is determined to do it differently.

So, the government has launched a consultation with staff and patients.

It is looking at how to use technology better, moving it from analogue to digital.

And also looking at how to provide more support in communities before people get to hospital and how to do more on prevention.

I’m asking local NHS staff for their views on what should change.

But anyone can get involved, either contact me or visit https://change.nhs.uk/en-GB/

The damage done to the NHS has been more than a decade in the making. We clearly have a long road ahead.

But while the NHS has been badly run down under the last government, it isn’t beaten.

Although I hear a lot about problems that people round here have faced with healthcare, I also hear stories each week about the brilliant staff across our NHS and the great care they have provided.

Our health and the health of our loved ones is the most important thing to us, and that’s why we all care so much about the future of our NHS.