Mr James Frith

Some of us newly elected or returning MPs have only just got our accommodation and offices sorted out, so I commend the Government on the speed with which they have got surgeons back to work, resolved the doctors’ strike, reviewed and assessed the crisis and made announcements for a decade of national renewal. They have also affirmed the view that our NHS should be treated not as a shrine or beyond question, but as something that must be returned to deep service to our country and play its part as a health and economic public service. Lord Darzi’s review for the Government highlights the critical issues in the NHS and the state we are in, and particularly the underfunding of primary care. It has been neglected in favour of a creeping trend towards hospital services, under the failed principle of leaving it late—the crisis mode setting that applied across our public services under the last Government. By design, people ended up in A&E because of a failure to plan for GP and primary care, with 16% fewer GPs than other high-income countries. The review also points out significant health inequalities, with deprived areas historically receiving insufficient resources. In Bury North, child poverty is up to 43%, densely concentrated in just three of our nine wards. Life expectancy for those living in Bury North ranges enormously: the difference in life expectancy between North Manor and East Ward is five years for women and nearly seven years for men.