Following Health and Social Care Secretary Therese Coffey’s statement to parliament, Isle of Wight MP Bob Seely has welcomed the government’s plan for patients across the country.
The Secretary of State announced a set of objectives for her department as part of her ‘plan for patients’. She set out expectations that everyone requiring an appointment with their GP will receive 1 within 2 weeks, patients with urgent needs will be prioritised for same-day appointments, and contacting a GP will be made easier by making an additional 31,000 phone lines available for GP practices.
Coffey intends to shorten ambulance response times – enabled by a faster handover of patients – and improve capacity and resource availability by increasing efficiency and the number of available call handlers.
The ‘plan for patients’ intends to reduce waiting times by expanding the public healthcare service’s capacity, building community diagnostic centres, changing elements of the NHS pension scheme to recruit and retain staff, and prioritising patients with the greatest need.
Coffey also announced plans to make accessing general practices easier, expanding the services available for community pharmacies, implementing more targeted funding for dentists caring for patients with complex needs, and removing bureaucracy for registering dentists that have trained abroad.
The Secretary of State said that the ‘plan for patients’ was based on evidence given by healthcare professionals: “We have listened and we are responding by removing various reasons that healthcare professionals say are holding them back from doing what they do best: caring for patients.”
The Health Secretary also recognised the geographical variation within the NHS, stating “The data shows that sadly there is too much variation in the care people receive – dental deserts; discharge delays; ambulance delays.”
Coffey promised to “endeavour, through a powerful partnership with the NHS and local authorities, to level-up and match the expectations that the public rightly have.”
Mr Seely asked the Health Secretary about “the specific needs of what her department calls ‘unavoidably small hospitals’, 12 of which are in England and Wales, covering twenty constituencies of which St Mary’s is the most isolated.” Seely asked the Health Secretary “will she or her ministers meet with me to discuss what more can be done to ensure support for these small hospitals which are so important for our communities.”
The Secretary of State confirmed that her department is working with the Isle of Wight Council on how they can begin discharging patients that no longer require treatment to increase the number of available beds.
The Secretary of State also affirmed that she knew “how important it is to make sure that the hospital itself can function readily.”
In response, Mr Seely stated that “we’ve done good work improving funding for unavoidably small hospitals, but there’s more to be done and I will work with MPs from across Parliament to make sure smaller hospitals – like St Mary’s – can care for constituents.”
Still not good enough.
That’s an amazing effort by the tories to completely screw up the NHS during their 12 years of austerity
They always do. They have done it before. Hopefully Labour will win the next election and sort many wrongs that have occurred over the last 12 years.
Two weeks is acceptable ! ! Let’s guess who has private health care then shall we. Totally disgusting, no wonder the A&E departments are full to the brim.
It’s us the Tax payers who pay for his health care.
Never mind the blah blah blah, sort out this meeting re planning permission on 5th October , of which there are the usual idiot’s who say they can’t get there due to train strikes !!!!!!!
1 hospital bed blocking etc etc…..
No more sucking up 2 whoever is most popular do you’re job for the island!!!!¡
As far as I can see all councillors mps are a waste of space …..
Only worried about themselves, us poor cash cow’s well we just have to suck it up ….
Can’t wait for next election !!!!!
You really need to listen to the voter’s!!¡!!!
But expect cotton wool ears couldn’t give a monkeys !!!!!!!
But not a peep from Bandwagon Bob on the utter mess this screwup Government has made of the economy.
Crashing the £ against the $US (which is the currency that is used to price fuel) will wipe out all “help” they are giving while still costing £billions.
He can’t say too much, he was a truss supporter, and this should be remembered on voting day!
More empty words that mean absolutely nothing, as nothing will change. Try getting to see a GP in East Cowes. They tell you that you have to ring at 8am or noon, and when you do they tell you that they have no appointments left! No wonder so many people turn up at St Mary’s that could and should have been seen by a GP, because they can’t get to see one.
Same here in Ryde, got letter from NHS saying i had to get Covid booster as soon as possible, called our surgery and they had no idea when they would be doing boosters so got on NHS website and got an appointment at St mary’s for two days later, gave up on flu jab and have booked into local chemist instead.
When does the 2 weeks start? From first picking up the phone and dialling or from someone finally answering at the other end? Could be a big difference between the two.
How on earth is two weeks acceptable,either your condition will of got worse and possibly life threatening or are they just thinking after two weeks people will just recover and no longer be needed. Lucky our GP can usually see you next day, they are fully staffed because they are treated well as part of a team, work is hard but morale is good. So lacking in these big privately owned practices,just the same with Vets. Everyone should be able to see GP 48hrs, that’s how was few years back. This last two weeks will cause the Conservative to loose next election or even before then at rate they are messing up the Country,
Used to see your gp in thd same week in the old days. My dad would turn in his grave!
Two weeks is unacceptable. 48 hours maximum. Time for the GPs to get back to work, and actually earning their £300,000+ annual income.
They can’t “get back to work” because they have gone.
Either retired, emigrated, or gone back to their own countries.
Retired or emigrated because they have had enough of their working conditions or gone back to their own countries because of Brexit.
Some have gone exclusively private.
Stop believing the crap in the right wing press (owned by billionaire Tory backers) tells you and open your eyes. If you voted for Seely (Tory and Brexiter) you voted for the current situation.
Oh, and their salary is between £50k and £80k. Again, stop believing the garbage in the Tory backed press.
Bla bla blaburp bla bla etc etc….,
I tried to get to see a nurse on the surgery phone today over four weeks!! No this just is not acceptable ag all and it’s definitely not going to happen let’s face it! I think it’s funny how they say all of this xxxx Hoping we’ll all be grateful! They believe their blurb themselves! Yeah I bet they’ve all got private health care. Wake up to the real world! Do you think they can hear me?
Many other services need attention, memory services for definite. Care sector, mental health the list goes on…
If your ill and need a doctor, you need to see them the SAME day, what the hell is this 2 week rubbish. For christ sake doctors are now getting paid for doing what exactly, sitting in an office, and maybe picking up the phone to “talk” to you and not “examine” you at all. Ridiculous…… thanks “Bandwagon Bob” for chipping in with the same old tory line. Your just as useless as Truss and all the rest of them.
Gone are the good old day’s when you could phone in the morning and get an appointment…
Now after the Spanish inquisition you are lucky if they offer you a phone consultation in 3 /4 weeks !!!!!
If you say it’s life or death they get you’re certificate ready ….
Death unknown….. natural causes ….covid related ….
No one knows cos no one has seen a Dr for so long …
2 weeks 2 long …..
Cause of death: Couldn’t see the doctor in time.
I actually remember the time if you felt ill, you could visit your GPs Surgery, book in with the receptionist, and then sit in a que in the waiting room. The buzzer would go when it was your turn, and into the doctor you went, simple.
And i used to moan about a 30 minuet wait. you can get that on the phone. Am i being kind if i say, too many people, too few doctors. ” Within two weeks ” . What nonsense. So, i have to know that i might be ill in a fortnights time do i
It was 48 hours under the last Labour Government. How can the Tories view 2 weeks as an achievement?
Another cheap headline grab, that he contributed nothing towards. You go half a sausage!
They are making this sound like it’s a massive step forward,but in reality it’s a tiny step back to where we were pre COVID.
My plumber mate had a call from his Dr. He asked if he could come and sort out his blocked loo, so the plumber called him to discuss his problem, then said ” put two aspirins down the loo, if it doesn’t clear in two weeks, call me again”.
Oh, how I laughed! Mr Seely does not have the experience of any of his constituents, clearly. He should give it a try in Cowes …
I welcome a competent government and MP’s but it’s never going to happen, doesn’t effect them as they all have private care we all pay for
If you break down the figures getting an appointment within two weeks is really rather poor, 2021 census show the population to be around 140,000, currently 85 family doctors, assuming a high figure of 20 per cent of the population require a doctor and 20 minute appoitnemts, and a working day of 8 hours, that means some doctors are only seeing less than 10 patients per day,
It seems that a lot of GPs are working part-time. Some are devoting more time to private work at the expense of NHS hours.
And don’t forget those that work from home, and live on the mainland. Must have been really upset when COVID restrictions were lifted
See a GP in two weeks? How nice. Despite having a chronic condition requiring treatment and monitoring I haven’t had a face-to-face with a GP at my surgery in over three years. Yes, that’s THREE YEARS. It’s all just Torytalk – make big boosterish announcements to look like you’re on the ball and then quietly drop everything when the press have moved on. Johnson was the master, Coffey is just learning the trade and we are all disposable victims.
You won’t get more appointments without more GPs, you won’t get more GPs without training more, or taking them away from other countries who need them, and you won’t get anything without much more money which now will have to be borrowed. My bet is you won’t get anything.
Did Seldom Seen miss the end of that article on radio when not five . Seconds later announcer stated Isle of Wight NHS said they cannot hope to comply with that?! Full marks Seldom seen!
Thatcher started all of this.
Known your place peasants. He’s our MP, that is like almost royalty. Don’t you have any respect?!