This week Labour is launching its mission to build an NHS fit for the 21st century, a roadmap to resuscitating and reforming a national service in crisis after 13 years of Conservative rule.
Stephen Morgan MP has welcomed the mission, describing the potential impact on Portsmouth’s health services as ‘transformational’.
In Portsmouth, and across the country, 13 years of Conservative Government has run health and social care services into the ground. Patients are suffering with month-long waits to see a GP, ambulances that can’t get to people in time to save lives; and life-threatening waiting lists for hospital treatment.
Under Labour’s plans, the NHS will see a 10-year plan for change and modernisation, including one of the biggest expansions of the NHS workforce in history, paid for by abolishing the non-dom tax status.
The plan involves:
- Shifting services out of hospitals and into the community, so that the NHS becomes as much a Neighbourhood Health Service as it is a National Health Service. This will target GPs, dentistry, pharmacies, community mental health support, and the care system.
- Expanding capacity and capability in the NHS through tackling long running workforce challenges and harnessing new technology.
- Bringing a renewed focus on prevention to government departments, the NHS, and wider public services, tackling the social inequalities that influence health.
Commenting on the mission launch, Stephen Morgan MP said:
“Under the last Labour Government, deteriorating services and long waits for care were not tolerated. Under this Conservative Government, for Portsmouth residents they are the norm.
The people of Portsmouth are crying out for a change. That’s why I’m backing a plan that goes beyond the sticking plaster approach and looks ahead to secure the future of vital health services in our city.
Labour’s mission to build an NHS fit for the future promises Portsmouth people the services they deserve. I urge the Government to consider doing the same”.
As part of the mission launch, Labour has committed to:
- Meeting all waiting time standards across ambulance, hospital, GP, dentistry services within five years
- Ensuring a reduction in key killers and preventable deaths: hitting all cancer waiting times early; reduce deaths from heart disease and stroke by a quarter within ten years heart disease; and reversing the trend of rising suicide rates to decline by five years
- Working towards increasing life expectancy, halving the gap in healthy life expectancy between different regions of England
Speaking at the mission launch in Braintree, Essex, Keir Starmer promised:
“We will fight for the NHS, we will fix the NHS, we will reform the NHS.
Old values, new opportunities – technology and science, convenience and control, renewal – not decline.
An NHS, not just off its knees, but running confidently towards the future.”
Mr Morgan has been speaking up for patients in Portsmouth and lobbying the Government to improve services across the NHS through additional funding, staffing and resourcing – focusing on improving access to GPs and dentists. The city MP is also spending time on the frontline in our city’s health services to hear concerns first-hand and will continue raising concerns in parliament.
You can read the mission launch in more detail here.
