A DAMNING report into the state of the NHS should be a wake-up call for the government. say Worcester Lib Dems.
The party believe Worcestershire’s local health and care services are on the brink and they hope the Lord Darzi report will galvanise parliament into action.
The independent report, which took nine weeks to compile, said that the NHS is in a ‘critical condition’ and that since 2015 it has missed every target for A&E, cancer and hospital treatment wait times.
It continued that significant reform would be required to return the NHS to peak performance.
Worcester Lib Dems continue that the new government must urgently invest in Worcestershire’s local health services with accessing care being the biggest challenge facing the area.
In the wake of the report, the Liberal Democrats nationally have called on the government to make fixing the NHS and care its top priority and to recruit more GPs, fix crumbling hospitals and enter into cross-party talks on tackling the crisis in social care.
Lib Dem spokesperson for Worcester Mel Allcott said: “This report must act as a wake-up call to fix our local health and care services on the brink.
“In recent weeks and months we have heard from countless people who are suffering from endless waiting lists, or struggling to see an NHS dentist or GP when they need to.
”The top priority of this new government must be fixing our NHS so people can finally get the care they deserve.”
Since the report was released on Thursday (September 12) prime minister Sir Keir Starmer said that the scale of the damage done to the NHS revealed by the report was “unforgivable”.
He also outlined three fundamental areas of reform as part of a ten-year plan. This includes an emphasis on “moving from an analogue to a digital NHS”, shifting care from hospitals to communities and moving from “sickness to prevention”.
He added: “We need to get the health service back on its feet and build an NHS that is truly fit for the future. Our starting point couldn’t be further from that goal. Public satisfaction in the NHS has fallen from an all-time high when the last Labour government was in office to an all-time low today. That is because the last government broke the NHS.”
