“As a local Labour Prospective Parliamentary Candidate I spend a great deal of time meeting with local people, listening to their hopes and concerns.” Says Bridgwater and West Somerset PPC Mick Lerry “Something I hear more and more about is the National Health Service. People tell me it’s getting harder to see the family doctor. David Cameron scrapped Labour’s guarantee of a GP appointment within 48 hours- and now 60 per cent of patients say they can’t see their GP within two days.”
Local Medical Centres are handing out letters to patients to explain how they are really struggling with the unprecedented growth in workload, as work transfers from the hospital to GPs without the necessary funding. Even the British Medical Association is leading a campaign to get government policy makers to see the difficulty that GPs are facing.
Frontline staff are being lost
Thousands of nurses and frontline staff have been lost from the NHS since David Cameron became Prime Minister and disturbingly, experts say that A&Es don’t have safe staffing levels.
If you are unfortunate enough to be waiting for a treatment like a cataract removal or knee operation, these are now being rationed.
David Cameron is responsible for this crisis. He has wasted £3 billion on a damaging NHS reorganisation, he promised wouldn’t happen. Nick Clegg and the Lib Dems have been too weak to stand up to David Cameron and have backed the Tories all the way. Meanwhile cuts to elderly care are sending more elderly people to A&E and making it harder for them to get the care they need at home.
“Labour rescued the NHS after years of Tory neglect before and we’ll do it again. We’ll repeal David Cameron’s NHS changes that put private profit before patients so that NHS professionals can focus on health care. And we’ll get started by guaranteeing a GP appointment within 48 hours and on the same day for those who need it”, says Mick Lerry
But the General Election isn’t until next year and that’s why Labour is organising a campaign now to call on David Cameron to guarantee a GP appointment within 48 hours straight away.
Please take a moment to sign the petition to guarantee GP access within 48 hours: http://www.labourinlondon.org.uk/our_nhs
Cllr. Mick Lerry – Leader of the Labour Group on Sedgemoor District Council
Labour Parliamentary Candidate for Bridgwater and West Somerset Constituency
Mobile: 07775 905080
Email: michael.lerry@btinternet.com
You can sign it by putting your full name in the box marked first name. Then it works. Well, it just did for me….
This is correct…it appears to be temporarily broken….this could be a subtle message regarding the future of the NHS under the Tories!!!….however… we have notified London Labour.
I might be being very daft, but the page with the petition seems to be broken. To sign you need to supply a Last Name but only a First Name is displayed, which is a bit frustrating! May explain why it doesn’t seem to have had many signatures in a while. Can someone report and get it fixed? I tried the page out in Firefox, Chrome and IE and couldn’t see “Last Name”…sorry if it’s me!