When it comes to the National Health Service, another political party has a history of claiming ‘there is only 24 hours to save the NHS’ at successive general elections, a history of carping from the sidelines, falsely claiming it is being starved of money, and a history of supporting strikes that end up making waiting lists longer. Thankfully, the reality is that my own Conservative party continually seek to improve performance and provide ever greater resources for the NHS.
Of course, we know performance could be better. Difficulties have been made worse by the pandemic, such as the huge amount of treatment deferrals and staffing shortages. An organisation the size of the NHS needs a long-term plan and I’m pleased to say that’s exactly what is happening. Historically, the NHS has brought in many foreign-trained doctors and nurses from abroad and it could not have managed without them. We are not the only western country to do this, and we are now seeing a global shortage of trained healthcare workers. We must also start to reduce the waiting lists.
We need more homegrown talent which is why the Conservative Government have confirmed that they will double the number of medical school places through the NHS Workforce Plan. We will see a doubling of the number of medical school training places for doctors from 7,500 to 15,000 and an investment of an extra £1 billion in training medical professionals for the future.
Health and social care are seeing an extra £45.6 billion being invested over the next three years, ensuring the NHS has the resources to cut waiting lists. While we need a focus on retention and need the remaining strikes in the NHS to end, we are seeing a record number of doctors and nurses being recruited for our NHS, which will help to cut waiting lists and ultimately make it easier to see a GP. In the past 12 months alone, over 5,100 more doctors and 11,800 more nurses have been recruited, meaning that compared to 2010 there are 38,160 more doctors and 47,414 more nurses in our NHS.
Councillor Duncan Crow, Leader of Crawley Borough Council Conservative Group
5th July 2023
