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You can't trust David Cameron on the NHS

Posted by Kate Green, MP for Stretford and Urmston, at 13:53, Fri 7 June 2013:

Before the General Election, David Cameron promised he’d protect the NHS.

Instead, his Government has cut almost 4,000 nurses, and A&E waiting times have hit a ten-year high.

Meanwhile, the NHS is reeling from a vast, top-down reorganisation that nobody wanted and nobody voted for.

It's cost us £3billion.

Now we have an A&E crisis that started on this Government’s watch.

When Labour left office, A&E was doing well.

98% of patients were seen within four hours.

But since 2010, the number of people waiting longer than four hours has nearly trebled, and more and more patients are being held in the back of ambulances as they queue to come in.

The North West has lost hundreds of nurses since May 2010. Nurses are the backbone of our NHS. But the Government has failed to grasp the seriousness of its cuts to nursing numbers.

That is one reason our A&Es are struggling.

The impact on us locally is shocking.

Data published by NHS England shows that the target of 95 per cent of patients being seen within four hours at A&E was missed in 31 weeks out of 35 by Central Manchester Hospitals (which include Trafford General), and in 30 weeks out of 35 by Wythenshawe.

Some of that reflects the long, cold winter we've had, and the position has been improving in recent weeks.

But there is also a deeper cause of the A&E crisis.

The government's devastating cuts to budgets for social care mean fewer older people are getting the help they need to stay healthy and independent in their own homes.

Trafford has cut over £2million.

Yet, just when the NHS is under huge pressure, George Osborne has clawed back £2billion from the NHS budget in ‘underspends’.

He's using money that should be invested in our NHS to massage his budget figures.

That's disgraceful.

This week in parliament, Andy Burnham said Labour would support the NHS immediately by investing £1.2bn of this over the next two years to ease the crisis in social care – tackling a root cause of the pressure on A&E. You can read the whole debate at: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201314/cmhansrd/cm130605/debtext/130605-0003.htm#13060568000002 For older people, this could make a huge difference, by enabling them to stay healthy and independent in their own homes for longer.

For example, it could allow for an extra 70 million hours of home care across England over the next two years or provide home care for an extra 65,000 older people each year.

We need to ensure that our NHS is protected and not destroyed by this Tory-led Government. And we need a guarantee that any decisions about the future of A&E in Trafford will take account of the pressures we're facing now. That's why, in the debate in parliament, I demanded that the secretary of state publish the advice he's received from the Independent Reconfiguration Panel, which he will consider when he makes his decision about services at Trafford General. And why I think we should wait for NHS Chief Sir Bruce Keogh's report into the future of emergency care. I want to see fewer people having to go to A&E because they can get more appropriate care in the community. I don't want older people, or people with dementia, or people with mental health problems having to go to A&E. It's the wrong place for them to be. But right now, it's devastatingly clear that there simply isn't anywhere else for them to go. We can't take services away without the right community health and social care services that prevent people needing to go to hospital in the first place.

Kate Green

Labour MP for Stretford & Urmston