LATER this year, we will celebrate two important improvements to our local health service.
The Three Counties Medical School, in Worcester, will welcome its first students training the next generation of doctors.
I am told that half of the intake will be domestic students and, recently, I joined a group of local MPs pressing the Health Secretary to fund more places for UK medical students as soon as possible.
There’s huge demand for people to study medicine locally and in the long-run, this will help us to fill more vacancies at our local hospitals and GP surgeries.
We will also celebrate the opening of the new £22million Emergency Department which I was lucky enough to tour as work concludes. It has a separate reception areas for adults and children, and a new admission area for ambulances. I’ve lobbied a succession of Ministers to fund this transformation and I am extremely hopeful that this will make a huge difference to the way people access emergency care.
I have also been encouraged by reports from the local health service managers about the way people access their GP. Recent figures show that our local GPs are performing well above the national average.
Waiting times for elective surgery have been significantly reduced and response time for less serious ‘category 2’ incidents are now down to 24 minutes.
Higher proportions of people can get an appointment with their GP within two weeks and GPs are offering 17 per cent more appointments – that’s 2,962 more than the equivalent month before the pandemic. The Government has just announced £645million to help free up GP appointments by helping pharmacists to see more people.
Next month, the NHS will celebrate its 75th birthday and it is truly our most prized national asset.
Locally, we continue to see significant investment in buildings and staff to make sure that the NHS is able to give the best possible care for us and our loved ones and ensure the service is very much fit for the future.
Pershore’s MP Harriett Baldwin writes for the Observer
