NHS waiting lists get better under a Labour government and worse under a Conservative government.
Recently, the FT has analysed the size of NHS waiting lists under each government since 1990. It clearly shows that waiting lists were significantly improved under the last Labour government and have dramatically deteriorated under the current Conservative government.
Further, through freedom of information requests, Helena has discovered local NHS waiting times have become significantly worse in recent years. Figure two shows the number of A&E patients being seen within the 4hr waiting time target has decreased considerably since 2015, with winter last year seeing local NHS services being unable to see roughly 30% of patients within an acceptable time frame. All this means that more patients are waiting in discomfort for increasingly longer times. Again, this shows that waiting times under this government are going in the wrong direction and change is needed.
Additionally, this research found that that there have been 2252 people within the constituency that have experienced waiting times of more than 4 weeks to see a GP and patients are waiting considerably longer to secure an ambulance after dealing 999.
In response to these findings, Helena said, "24 hours in A&E used to be a TV show now it’s the reality. Our NHS has been pushed to breaking point after 12 years of Conservative mismanagement. We must fix this. The next Labour government will oversee the biggest expansion of the NHS workforce in history training more nurses, doctors and midwives."
Specifically, Wes Streeting, the shadow health minister, has said that Labour would solve the problem of growing waiting times in the NHS by:
Doubling the number of medical school places to train 15,000 doctors a year.
Training 10,000 new nurses and midwives every year.
Doubling the number of district nurses qualifying each year.
Providing 5,000 new health visitors.
