Richard Spring MP
Member of Parliament for West Suffolk

This week I gave lunch to two councillors and an ex-councillor from my constituency, at the House of Commons. I was asked what was the thing I enjoyed most about being a Member of Parliament – not for the first time.

It is true that here every day is different, and that you also have a ringside seat at the heart of the nation’s political process. You also meet extraordinary people, from unsung heroes in your own constituency to the great and the good. I recently met the brilliantly articulate Bill Clinton, and also Gerhard Schroder, who tells stories of his political life with terrific panache and good humour.

However it is the constituency which is the most satisfying not least because you can directly make an impact on people’s lives. For example, yesterday I wrote to the new Health Secretary, Alan Johnson, pleading with him to speed up a decision about the future of Newmarket Hospital in my constituency. The hospital fulfils all the criteria the government favours, something admitted to me by his predecessor, Patricia Hewitt, in our various meetings. However, what with a change of Prime Minister and a Cabinet reshuffle, things have been on hold. It will certainly be a very happy day for me if we can get what my constituents really want. To put it mildly, after all the campaigning, I am on tenterhooks, because I know how much the decision means to the people who elected me, and indeed to their Parliamentary representative.

On Saturday, all over the country the Conservative Party had an NHS Action Day, with leaflets and petitions.

90% of people who passed our stall signed the petition. It was extraordinary – their enthusiasm to do so. The night before on the local TV news, we heard that one of the region’s hospitals is so short of secretarial help, because of cuts, that the surgeons were sending handwritten letters to their patients. Community nurses on Saturday told me that they were barred from ordering even basic equipment like disposable gloves ahead of the financial year end, of people discharged prematurely from hospital, of incredible pressures put on them to prevent people from going to hospital at all, and of the total collapse of morale. In Suffolk, we have a financial crisis of gargantuan proportions, with NHS trusts finding it impossible to pay off accumulated debts. This is from a government which said “24 hours to save the NHS”.

Much of the rejection of Labour arises out of what has happened to our health service. People are no longer angry or even disgusted, they just want to get rid of them. It is difficult to believe that they will be changing their minds over the next two years.

This morning is a very important one in the life of the people of Newmarket. The future of the local hospital is being considered by the Health Scrutiny Committee at Suffolk County Council. I shall be present and will speak.

Suffolk’s NHS is in a huge financial crisis. They want to remove community beds from local hospitals in the county. However, the hospital in Newmarket is only eleven years old and provides very valuable diagnostic, therapeutic and outreach care. The town’s GPs want to establish a facility on site. This would provide a seamless range of primary and intermediate care facilities, including step-down beds, which is exactly what current NHS opinion favours. A long and hard battle has been fought, hugely demoralising to the wonderful caring staff at the hospital.

We read about hospital closures……this is always a matter of vital concern to the local community. Let us hope that commonsense prevails today.