Our Health Service looks rather poorly, says Andrew Stunell MP

12.02.58pm GMT Tue 6th Dec 2005

Stockport's NHS has caught a cold. Deficits are mounting, waiting lists are extending, and a miracle new booking system means longer waits for treatment lie ahead. Meanwhile, if you've tried going to the dentist recently, or needed a hearing test, you'll know even the 'easy bits' aren't doing too well.

It is a puzzle, because there is no doubt that a lot more money is being spent than 10 years ago.

In the last month I've met a group of angry and disillusioned GPs, a dentist at the end of the road with the NHS, and many individual patients and carers who were expecting better than they got from, well, just about everything from the ambulance service to x-ray treatment. Mental health care is very hard pressed, and now the unions are up in arms at the shortage of money and staff to deliver a good service there, too. The latest bit of folly comes to me from a junior doctor - the training programme is at long last churning out new doctors nationally, but the senior hospital jobs are not there for them to complete their qualifications. My constituent has applied for a job in New Zealand as the only way to finish off.

Don't get the idea that no-one cares - the town is knee deep with 'recovery plans' and 'risk assessments', and good old Whitehall has a great plan to completely reorganise the whole show. If they get their way (and they usually do) the Strategic Health Authority will be abolished - and a new one created covering the whole of the North West. The Primary Care Trust will have most of its work taken away, and it may finish up being combined with Tameside.

The only problem is that it doesn't seem likely that it will produce one extra doctor, or dentist, or audiologist.

The Liberal Democrats have been making the point that when there is new money it should be targeted at patients; that endless reorganisations seldom save money, but do take all the senior people's eyes off the ball; and that if cut-backs are to be made (as is already happening) they should be based on causing the least harm to patients, not just the biggest savings in money.

I shall continue to push hard for local residents to have access to the very best of NHS services, provided in good time. There is still a long long way to go.

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