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First-rate local NHS facilities, longer GP opening hours and Government NHS patient pledges The Chew Magna GP surgery has needed bigger premises for years. Staff there have professionally put to one side obvious problems of lack of space and access, working hard to provide excellent treatment. But it’s been clear for some time that the practice has outgrown its current premises. So new investment to rebuild it – with much more space, bringing more health services together under one roof – will be warmly welcomed across our area.
Vital Government funding has also paid for other first-rate NHS facilities close by. Across in Keynsham, for example, the newly opened state-of-the-art £6 million Health Centre, now provides services for North East Somerset residents including GPs, physiotherapists, midwives, dentists, podiatrists, and speech therapists.
And just up the road, work on building Hengrove Park with its new community hospital is underway. A hospital in nearby south Bristol has been talked about for decades. Now it will be built, thanks to record Government investment in the NHS, which remains the envy of the world.
Other local healthcare improvements include the Government’s insistence on longer GP opening hours, including weekends and evenings. It makes it easier to get a suitable appointment if you can’t really take time off during the day – people who are self employed, for example, and those paid by the hour.
The change was made in response to popular demand. Major surveys of patients showed far too many were finding it difficult to get a GP appointment. So the Government stepped in, securing important changes.
It’s essential we have modern NHS facilities, and easy access to them. But most people would rightly argue the quality of treatment when you get there is more important still.
And for some illnesses, the speed at which it’s available means the difference between life and death.
That’s why I so firmly support a new Government plan that would mean every patient with suspected cancer being tested and told their results within just seven days of seeing a doctor. It would save hundreds of West Country lives every year.
People I’ve been speaking to, on doorsteps and at my twice-weekly surgeries and coffee mornings, think it’s the right thing to do. Not everyone agrees. The Conservatives would scrap important patient guarantees, including this new right to cancer diagnosis within one week.
Residents have also been telling me they’re pleased about a further Government plan, announced last month: Every North East Somerset cancer patient will be offered free, one-to-one home care by specialist nurses under the proposals. What do you think? Please let me know by getting in touch
Written for the Chew Valley Gazette March 2010 |