By Cllr Rachel Burgess
As a local councillor one of the most frequent concerns reported to me is the availability of GP appointments.
“The availability of a doctor at the GP surgery is almost impossible,” said a resident to me recently.
Another told me that they had been diagnosed with breast cancer and tried many times to make an appointment over a six-month period but were repeatedly told there were no doctors or nurses available.
As well as it being one of the most frequent complaints, it is also one of the most frustrating issues as a councillor, as the Council does not have any direct jurisdiction over GP services.
For example, Burma Hills surgery is in the heart of my ward and many of my residents rely upon it.
A small intimate practice that is within easy walking distance is an important part of residents’ wellbeing. I know how much the surgery means to people.
However, with the temporary closure of GP services at the surgery, followed by a long period of locum doctors, many residents find it near impossible to get a GP appointment. Some have turned to ‘DIY’ health treatments as they can’t see a GP face-to-face, while others fear a permanent closure of the site as a GP surgery.
Their concern is understandable. Twelve years of Conservative governments means there are simply not enough GPs to go around. The Royal College of GPs itself stated over a year ago that there is a “chronic shortage of GPs caused by a decade of under-investment in the family doctor service by successive governments”.
Five million people in Britain could not get a doctors’ appointment in October 2022.
While our Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is registered with a private GP practice that guarantees people will be seen ‘on the day’, millions of ordinary people, including many in Wokingham, cannot see their GP and may get a diagnosis too late.
This pattern is repeated in the wider NHS with increasingly serious consequences.
After successive winter crises in the NHS, this year is particularly grave, the worst in its history.
We have all heard the stories of people waiting to be seen for hours in hospital corridors, people waiting in ambulances backed up outside hospitals, and many are unfortunate enough to have experienced it first-hand.
These can be life or death situations –- and Britain falls behind many other economically comparable nations as regards the availability of good quality care. Health leaders have warned that this crisis will continue at least until April.
People are dying needlessly due to inaction, with the Chief of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine estimating last week that there are 300-500 extra deaths per week due to these delays.
And yet the Prime Minister stated last week that the NHS is “getting the funding it needs”. He has been in “crisis talks” over the weekend with NHS leaders – talks that the Chief Executive of the NHS Confederation has said will not be able to fix the crisis because the reality is it “has been a decade or more in the making”.
A product of 12 years of Conservative mismanagement.
Labour has a plan to train a new generation of doctors and nurses, health visitors and midwives, funded by scrapping the non-dom tax status which currently allows some of the most wealthy to pay less tax than they should.
Labour will double the number of medical school places, train 10,000 extra nurses and midwives every year, double the number of district nurses qualifying each year and create 5,000 more health visitors.
Twelve years of running down the NHS can’t be fixed overnight.
But Labour has a plan, a first step, while the Conservatives have run out of ideas.
Locally I will keep putting pressure on GP providers to give people the service they need and deserve. I will continue to request action regarding the two main surgeries that serve my ward.
But, frustratingly, there is only so much a ward councillor can do: ultimately, only a change of government can fix this crisis.
We need more doctors, more nurses, shorter waiting times, and better care. That’s the difference a Labour government will make.
Cllr Rachel Burgess is leader of the Labour Group on Wokingham Borough Council and ward councillor for Norreys ward
