The NHS is facing a perfect storm. According to the BMA, it has been underfunded by more than £300bn since 2010. At the same time, it has been paying over £2bn a year to service PFI debt acquired under the last Labour government, and outsourced services have been leaking funds to private, profit-making companies.
This chronic underfunding has affected the NHS across all areas, whether it is an inability to attract and retain staff, to get appointments with a GP or NHS dentist or to access mental health care. Waiting lists continue to grow and there are increasing delays in diagnosis and treatment.
All of this has been compounded by underfunding of welfare and housing provision and a failure to regulate the food industry, leading to further sickness and disease. Health inequalities are growing, and more and more people are unable to work due to sickness or the need to take on caring responsibilities. We also have a rapidly ageing population which places even more pressure on health and social services.
So where to start? It won’t be possible to fix 14 years of neglect in the life of one parliament. Yes, we need to increase funding to the NHS and reduce leakage of funds to private companies, but we also need to invest in public health services and in early diagnosis. Late diagnosis means too many NHS resources are focused on acute care which is more expensive and has poorer outcomes. One key action must be a focus on locally available services.
The Green Party would restore public health budgets and invest substantially more money in primary care to improve access to GPs and NHS dentists. We would create a network of community diagnostic and health centres so that patients can be tested quickly as close to home as possible, and then referred onwards if necessary. These centres would also provide mental health triage and access to care to help avoid costly and distressing crises.
Local centres would be located to reflect gaps in existing NHS capacity but would be of particular relevance in rural areas such as Suffolk Coastal where many patients currently have to travel long distances to access health services. As your MP I would be particularly focused on supporting the provision of better and more accessible local health services and tackling the conditions such as poor housing and low incomes that are making it harder for people to stay well in the first place.
Julian Cusack
First published in the Felixstowe and Woodbridge Flyers www.flyeronline.co.uk and in the Tide Collection (Aldeburgh, Leiston, Saxmundham and Southwold editions) https://www.leistonpress.com/printing/tide-collection/