LABOUR leader Sir Keir Starmer headed to Worcester to outline the party’s plans for the National Health Service.
During his visit, Sir Keir, and his Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting, visited the University of Worcester’s new medical school where he also held a question and answer session with the establishment’s healthcare students.
Worcester is a key indication seat in the general election – for the last 45 years, whichever party has won in the Faithful City has also taken control of the country.
As part of its plans, Labour has announced, if elected, it would send in crack teams to get to work cutting NHS waiting lists from day one in government
Labour will tell hospitals to start establishing weekend and evening clinics to cut down on waiting lists on day one in Government.
Other key factors of Labour’s plan for the NHS
The Labour leader has pledged to deliver 40,000 more appointments every week across the country by sending out teams which have developed a new way of working.
Staff at Guy’s and St Thomas’s NHS Foundation Trust have already proven they were able to get their high intensity theatre lists on weekends up and running within six weeks.
The new crack teams will help roll-out the scheme nationally, to begin clearing what Sir Keir calls ‘the Tory backlog and reverse 14 years of rising waiting lists under the Conservatives’.
Labour claims new figures show that NHS waiting lists will hit 10million if the Conservative Party is given another five years in office.
Other key factors in Labour’s plan for the NHS include doubling the number of scanners to diagnose patients earlier, delivering the biggest expansion of NHS staff in history and using spare capacity in the private sector, free of charge to patients.
Labour believes it can reform the NHS so patients get more out of the service for the amount they put in.
The extra 40,000 appointments a week and doubling scanners will cost £1.3 billion and will be paid for by clamping down on tax dodgers and closing non-dom tax loopholes.
Sir Keir said: “It was NHS staff working in the hospital I can see from my office in Parliament who led the way on this new model.
“Labour will take the best of the NHS to the rest of the NHS, so patients in every part of the country can be treated on time.
“The NHS is personal to me. It runs through my family. That’s why I’m utterly committed to reforming this service, getting the NHS back on its feet, and making it fit for the future.”
The Labour leader also took time out to meet with the other Worcestershire Labour Prospective Parliamentary Candidates, including Neena Gill who is standing in Bromsgrove
