Yvette Cooper MP: Urgent action needed to rescue NHS

Yvette Cooper MP writes: Every single day I hear from people across our area struggling to get the diagnosis or treatment they need. And I hear from local nurses and doctors who are doing an amazing job but who are exhausted and overstretched.

After 13 years of Conservative government, parts of our precious NHS are now on their knees. We need urgent action to turn it round.

There are 55,000 people now on waiting lists for treatment with Mid Yorkshire Trust – more than a third of them waiting over 18 months.

Latest shocking figures show that across the country around 121,000 people died last year whilst on a NHS waiting list.

Our NHS used to be the envy of the world.

Across Yorkshire and across the country, our NHS doctors, nurses, health professionals and support staff do an incredible job treating and caring for us through thick and thin.

And that core principle that people should be treated according to need rather than the ability to pay is something we should be very proud of because all our families would be devastated without it.

But our NHS and our country is being badly let down by the deeply damaging policies and chaos of this Conservative government.

Like our school buildings, our NHS is crumbling and ministers haven’t a clue.

The government has scrapped important cancer targets, has no proper plan for crumbling hospitals, and has completely failed to sort the pay dispute with doctors which no one wants to see continuing.

Rishi Sunak is too busy jetting around in private planes and helicopters and has absolutely no sense of the reality of life on a waiting list for sick people in our towns.

He has no idea of the complete nightmare of dialling 999 for an ambulance only for it not to come.

It’s completely unbelievable and yet I’ve had a number of local people contact me because of ambulance delays.

When I was a health minister in the Labour government back in the early 2000s, we launched a plan to reduce NHS waiting times.

We guaranteed that no patient would have to wait longer than 18 weeks for a hospital operation from the time they are referred by their GP, with a target average wait of nine to ten weeks. Those waits are now being counted in months not weeks.

We urgently need a proper plan to protect the NHS for the long term.

One that invests in capacity for the long term and in the staff needed to treat patients with dignity and respect – that’s what the last Labour government did and it’s what Labour is calling for again now.

If we get rid of the unfair non-dom tax loophole for the richest in the country that could train thousands more nurses, doctors, midwives and health visitors to get the NHS back on its feet.

We’ve rescued the NHS before but action is urgently needed to do it again.

Our NHS is 75 years old this year. My aunt remembers the days before our NHS when families had to pay to get the doctor round. We can’t go back to that.

We need a proper rescue plan to restore our NHS so it can be our pride and joy in the future again too.