We have fulfilled our promise to deliver two million more NHS appointments, with the waiting list falling for the fourth month in a row. We have reached this target seven months earlier than expected, meaning thousands of patients have received vital operations, scans, treatments earlier than planned, helping them get back to work and on with their lives sooner.
This is a promise made and a promise kept.
This is the change that people elected us to deliver last July.
Of all the crises that this Labour Government inherited, saving our NHS was the one people in High Peak cared about most on the doorstep. The Conservatives left nearly 8 million people on waiting lists. That meant that nearly every family in High Peak knew someone who had been left in pain waiting for and worrying about their treatment. The Conservatives should never be trusted with the health of our nation again.
In stark contrast this Labour Government has hit the ground running to fix the broken health service we inherited by tackling the waiting lists, and building an NHS fit for the future. This includes ending NHS strikes so staff are on the front line instead of the picket line this winter, vaccinating more people against flu than this time last year and putting immediate investment into our health system through £1.8 billion to fund extra elective care appointments as part of record £26 billion extra NHS funding secured at the October Budget. The tough decisions the Chancellor has taken are paying off for all of us who rely on the NHS.
But this is only the start. Hitting this milestone is a crucial step towards treating 92% of elective care patients within 18 weeks of referral by the end of this Parliament – delivering a core commitment in our NHS Plan for Change.
We will meet the 18-week target through long overdue reforms to overhaul the system, support staff, cut waste and put patients first – creating millions more appointments in the process. The plan includes freeing up around 1 million more appointments every year by removing non-essential follow-ups, publishing a new deal with the independent sector to increase capacity, revolutionising the NHS app to give patients greater choice and control over their treatment and preventing unnecessary referrals by incentivising GPs to work with hospital doctors to get specialist advice.
The government has also launched a nationwide consultation on the 10 Year Health Plan to build an NHS fit for the future and secured an extra £2 billion to upgrade NHS technology and £1 billion to deal with the massive NHS maintenance backlog.
The doom-mongers from the Conservatives and Reform will tell you the NHS doesn’t work. We should give up on it. We’re going to prove them wrong. The NHS is only safe with a Labour Government.
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Watching my father disappear into Alzheimer’s is something my family will never forget. It is a story that, sadly, will feel painfully familiar to so many families across High Peak.
People often say that with Alzheimer’s and dementia you lose the person twice. First, as the illness slowly robs them of the person they once were, and then again when their body finally gives up after a long and cruel battle.
As heartbreaking as that is, it is often accompanied by another burden: the constant worry about how to provide the care they need, and how that care will be paid for.
For decades, social care has been the problem every politician acknowledges but no government has truly solved. Almost everyone agrees the system is broken. Yet whenever serious reform is proposed, the debate quickly descends into scare stories, political point-scoring and accusations of “death taxes”, leaving families exactly where they started.
That has to change.
Last week, Andy Burnham said he was prepared to spend political capital on fixing social care and to work with other political parties to build the consensus needed to make lasting reform possible.
I know this is deeply personal for Andy. His own father is living with Alzheimer’s. But long before that, as Health Secretary, he argued that social care should be valued alongside healthcare as an essential part of the system, not treated as an afterthought.
For too long, social care has been the forgotten partner of the NHS.
When we think about our health service, we rightly picture doctors, nurses and hospitals. But social care is every bit as vital. It helps older people remain independent, supports disabled adults to live fulfilling lives, gives families reassurance, and frees up hospital beds by helping people return home safely when they are ready.
When social care fails, the NHS feels the consequences. Hospital beds stay occupied, ambulance queues grow longer, families are left exhausted, and vulnerable people do not receive the support they deserve.
Years of underinvestment have left providers struggling to survive, care workers undervalued despite the extraordinary job they do, and families facing impossible choices at the most difficult moments of their lives.
Getting social care right is not simply about one public service. It is about making our entire health and care system work better.
Andy has instructed that the review of social care should report much sooner, with conclusions expected by this time next year. That gives us a real opportunity to have the honest, grown-up conversation the country has avoided for far too long.
As your MP, I will work with anyone - whatever their political party - who is serious about delivering the lasting reforms families deserve.
My father’s journey with Alzheimer’s will stay with me forever. It reinforced something I have always believed: every one of us deserves to grow old with dignity. Every family deserves the confidence that, when the time comes, good care will be there without fear, uncertainty or impossible financial decisions.
We’ve talked about fixing social care for long enough. It’s time we finally did it.
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