Richard Spring MP
Member of Parliament for West Suffolk

It is believed by some that one of Labour’s achievements of their time in power has been the reduction in NHS waiting times. However, figures obtained yesterday reveal a different story, which really needs proper airing. 

In fact, average hospital waiting times have risen under Labour. Average waiting times for inpatients were 41 days in 1997 but by last year reached 49 days, according to NHS figures. 

The top-down, centralised, target-driven culture imposed on our NHS by central Government has distorted patient care. In meeting one target, it simply means that another patient misses out. 

In 1997, Tony Blair warned that there were ‘24 hours to save our National Health Service.’ A decade later, and despite government spending on the NHS having more than trebled, expectations have not been met. 

It is quite obvious that this was one of the most misleading political promises ever made, which has now been exposed. And GPs, nurses and others know this to be true, which is why morale is so desperately low. 

Of course it is desirable for people to be treated at home, and not in hospital; people naturally would prefer not to go into hospital if possible.

However, up and down the country GPs are being pleaded with not to send patients to hospital. In hospitals in Suffolk, beds have been cut by 20% over the past 10 years. This is why our local hospitals are more or less permanently on black alert, why such high bed capacity encourages viruses and bugs. Vomiting and diarrhoea bugs are commonplace and frankly many of my constituents are now scared to go into hospital. Community nurses tell me of patients discharged prematurely, who should still be in hospital. It is a nightmare for our nurses, doctors and ancillary workers.

We are an ageing population. Our NHS is now run by obsessive bureaucracy which tries to fulfil centralised targets. Our health outcomes compare poorly with many of our European counterparts.

Where has all the money gone? Certainly not into hospital beds, which are now chronically in short supply. And fantastically there are now more people managing and organising the NHS then there are beds. You couldn’t make it up.     

As all colleagues report ahead of the local council elections on 3^rd May, there has been one theme repeatedly brought up on the doorstep: what has happened to our NHS? People are incredulous.

Most people remember back in 1997 when the fresh-faced Tony Blair trumpeted “24 hours to save the NHS”. Spending on the NHS has trebled since then. Yet the question I am most often asked by people is, where has the money gone? Our local health service in Suffolk is currently facing debts of £52 million this year. If the accounting rules had not been changed, it would have been closer to £80 million. This is despite our hospitals closing wards and sacking staff.

One reason is that the Government increased funding for the NHS without ensuring that reform of the structures would take place at the same time. Much of the money was spent on recruiting more managers and bureaucrats, which encouraged a form-filling and target-driven culture. It should have been spent on front line services. It should be professionals and clinicians making decisions, not hordes of often overpaid pen pushers.

For example, in Haverhill, the largest and fastest growing town in my constituency, GPs are infuriated after being told by the Suffolk Primary Care Trust that their budgets will be cut by £308,610 this year. This is a huge sum and it will have dire consequences for surgeries in the town. Staffing cuts will be inevitable leading to longer waiting times, or patients travelling further afield to seek treatment. The hard-working and dedicated NHS staff are feeling demoralised because their work is being undermined by the bureaucrats who interfere so much in their lives.

Yesterday there was an extraordinary scene in the gallery of the House of Commons, something unique in my experience. Junior doctors broke into spontaneous applause when the Opposition attacked the government for causing so much distress and anxiety to them and their career prospects.

People are now seeing the effects of this failure by the Government to reform the NHS over the past decade. They will, no doubt, apportion blame rather conclusively on 3^rd May.

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.