Helen Morgan

I beg to move, That this House regrets that the NHS has been plunged into crisis by years of neglect by the previous Government, leaving far too many people waiting weeks to see a GP or unable to find an NHS dentist, and children and adults waiting months or even years to receive the mental health care they need; believes that everyone should be able to access high-quality primary care services when they need them and where they need them; condemns the previous Government for presiding over a fall in the number of full-time equivalent fully qualified GPs and NHS dentists in the last Parliament; further regrets that the Government has not yet set out a plan to invest in primary care at the level needed to meet demand; calls on the Government to boost access to GPs, NHS dentists and community pharmacists; and further calls on the Government to give everyone the right to see a GP within seven days or within 24 hours if they urgently need to and to guarantee access to an NHS dentist for everyone needing urgent and emergency care. It is a real honour to open this debate on the Liberal Democrats’ first Opposition day for 15 years. Primary care is the front door to the health service, but for too many people at the moment, that door is closed. Whether they are waking up and dealing with the 8 am calling frenzy to get a GP appointment, frantically ringing every dental practice in their area for an NHS dentist, or turning up at their local pharmacy to pick up a prescription for their loved one or themselves and finding it unexpectedly closed or the medicine out of stock, primary care is in terrible trouble and it needs fixing urgently. That is not only to make lives better for the people who are suffering because they cannot access the primary care they need, but to allow the NHS to function more efficiently. Accident and emergency is not a decent substitute door to the NHS. I am an asthmatic and as a young person I had quite serious asthma. I can remember when primary care was absolutely there for me in the middle of the night. On lots of occasions when I needed help, my dad did not have to take me to the hospital in an ambulance. Somebody came to me with a nebuliser and got me sorted out within a couple of hours, and then we all went back to bed. Now, that is not an option for a lot of people. The NHS is in a crisis, and that is causing pain and suffering unnecessarily. The crisis is also costing far more than we can afford. It is costly because early intervention and dealing with people in their community or at their home is so much more efficient than taking somebody to hospital, even if that is in a private car. And it is costly because it causes people genuine pain: the BBC reported that in Oswestry in my constituency this year, a man removed his molar with a pair of pliers because he could not find an NHS dentist. But it is also costly because people are unable to access work, and that is costing the economy. Polling commissioned by the Liberal Democrats showed that one in four people had been unable to go to work while waiting for a primary care appointment. That is not good for an economy that urgently needs to grow. We need urgent investment in primary care—in doctors, dentists and community pharmacists—to save people from having to go to hospital.