North East Labour MPs have given a scathing response to the new NHS Plan for Patients announced by the health secretary today. (Thursday, September 22).
Therese Coffey unveiled measures designed to ease pressure on the NHS with a staff recruitment drive and improve the experience of patients trying to get GP appointments.
She told the House of Commons she would prioritise increasing the number of 999 and 111 call handlers and free up more hospital beds.
A £500m social care discharge fund, in the form of a downpayment, will be put in place for the winter and a recruitment plan for social carers will also be getting underway with a £15 million boost to help employ more from abroad.
The plan follows an 'ABCD' approach focusing on improving ambulances, backlogs, care and doctor and dentist services.
And whilst North East Tory MPs welcomed the measures, saying they will benefit patients, Labour MPs in the region gave damning verdicts.
Durham City Labour MP Mary Kelly Foy said: "The “ABCD” plan would be laughable if the situation facing the health service wasn’t so dire.
"But a shortage of GPs, doctors, nurses and social carers has very real life and death consequences. It’s no laughing matter.
"Patients' faith in our health service is declining and staff morale is at rock bottom.
"The ABCD Plan will do little to avert crisis this winter.
"NHS Staff could be forgiven for thinking this plan stood for: A - abandoned B - broken C - collapsing D - demotivated.
"After 12-years of Tory mismanagement of the NHS that is what the workforce have been reduced to.
"We should know that acronyms don’t fix the NHS, Labour Governments do.”
Alex Cunningham, Labour MP for Stockton North said the 'so-called plan' comes 'nowhere near' what is needed to tackle the issues faced by the NHS.
He added: "It does absolutely nothing to address the shortage of doctors, nurses and care workers that is compromising patient safety and driving staff morale through the floor, and it does nothing to ensure patients get guaranteed appointments with their GPs, an issue my office is often contacted about.
"Nor does it do anything about the tremendous health inequalities affecting communities like those on Teesside.
“After twelve years of Tory negligence and multiple Health Secretaries, including three in the last three months alone, the NHS is facing a very real crisis.
"What the Health Secretary has presented today is nothing more than a sticking plaster which will do nothing to address the fundamental problem faced by the NHS, namely a Conservative Government that has starved it of the funding and resources it desperately needs.”
Jacob Young, Conservative MP for Redcar, said the plan should address the NHS backlog problem created by the Covid-19 pandemic that has seen patients wait for too long to get appointments with their GP
He said: "The new Government Plan for Patients announced today means anyone who needs a GP appointment will get one within two weeks.
"Pharmacies will be able to supply some medicines without prescription. This will free up over a million GP slots nationwide.
"The plan will see the recruitment of more emergency call handlers to speed up ambulance response times and also provides extra support staff and new cloud-based telephone systems in GP surgeries, again freeing up valuable time.
"I am delighted to see Therese Coffey and the Department of Health and Social Care take action to help tackle the issues of GP access which have impacted people in Redcar and Cleveland."
Simon Clarke, Conservative MP for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland, also welcomed the measures, saying: "I know only too well the problems patients have faced in speaking to their GP and getting appointments.
"In my own constituency of Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland this is an issue I have been working on with local bodies throughout the summer.
"One of the key elements we identified was the need for better telephony systems for surgeries so you can actually get through at 8am.
"I am keenly aware that in some communities, like Skelton, this has been a sore point for ages so I am delighted to see this particular problem targeted for improvement in our new Plan for Patients.
"Add to that the recruitment of more call handlers to get ambulances where they need to be quicker and the £500 million extra funding for social care, this Plan for Patients represents a huge shake up that will benefit patients first."
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