NHS & GP CRISIS across Windsor Constituency and the UK

The average waiting time for a GP appointment is set to reach over 2 weeks by next April in more than 50% of surgeries. This is due to the Condem government raiding the GP budget to fund the massively expensive, top-down re-organisation that nobody wanted in the first place. In 2010 there were 70 GPs for every 100,000 patients, now there are only 66.5 and that figure is set to drop still further.

To add to the misery, the numbers of young doctors entering GP training has dropped dramatically since 2007. The new ‘supermarket’ model of an NHS that has been imposed on us by this government has created a more stressful environment for our GPs who have to cope with longer and longer waiting lists. This year less than 70% of the GP training places across the UK, were taken up.

The government is busy removing many of the NHS targets, to try to make things easier for the doctors, but that is going to badly affect the standard of care that we, the patients, get. We can already see this in the lengthening of waiting times for operations and in the poor waiting times to start cancer treatment across England.

The NHS should not be turned into a ‘Cash Cow’ for company shareholders; the NHS is at it’s best when all it’s funding is for use on patients, staff and equipment. May 2015 is the opportunity for people to vote Labour, to end this madness and to repair our NHS.