We asked the candidates ...

It really is a crisis – and it’s difficult to believe that this is not intentional. For 20 years we have seen privatisation of our health service, behind a ‘free at the point of use’ NHS branding. Huge amounts of our public money now goes to private health care businesses to deliver services, with the obvious profit motives. In addition, the various trusts and care boards make navigating the complex organisations very difficult.

Demands on GP services and hospital admissions are huge with waiting lists standing at over 7 million people. The vast majority of us support the principles of the NHS. So we have to get back to those foundational principles.  

The Green Party believe in a publicly run and accountable NHS. As an MP candidate I have signed the “We Own It” pledge for the NHS. The private sector interest in the NHS does not stretch to the overburdened A&E, or training staff, or the difficult and expensive operations. It is the public sector who are having to take on the load of the costs of the NHS – and still even more money is being diverted towards the private sector.

We need to build capacity in our NHS so that our fantastic nurses, health assistants, doctors and surgeons can get on and do the best job they can. We must properly pay our doctors and nurses, so that they can afford to stay and work in the NHS. We must fight to keep our local GP practices (such as at Wootton Bridge). We must prioritise accessibility of services – through an affordable, frequent and reliable ferry service – so that all islanders can access cancer treatment (for example)

And we must do this through investing directly in the NHS, not through the fragmented private companies.

Liberal Democrats believe that investing in prevention through public health initiatives and primary care is the most effective way to enhance well-being and reduce the burden on NHS services. The Liberal Democrats have called on the Government to train 8,000 more GPs and give pharmacists more prescribing power, as part of a plan to solve the pressures hitting the NHS.

As a former health professional I am actively advocated the health needs of Islanders.

• I view that the reorganisation of health services on the Island to where all of our health services are controlled from the mainland has impacted negatively on the Island’s health provision, and it is a priority to get stronger control back on the Island.
• I would fight to reverse this regional decision making to local decision making for Island residents through the Integrated Care Board (ICB). I worked with ICB to make sure Argyll Street Surgery remains open and can become sustainable for the future and I am currently working with Lib Dem Councillor, Sarah Redrup, and local residents to maintain a GP Surgery in Wootton. As your MP, I would continue this fight to ensure local services are saved and can flourish.
• As Chair of the IW Policy and Scrutiny Committee for Health and Social Care over the last year, I have worked with IW Health Watch to bring NHS and Public Health to account and to listen to the voice of local residents and patients. There is a desperate need for recognition by NHS and Government that the Island has exceptional circumstances and that travelling across the Solent for treatment is costly and traumatic.

After fourteen years of Conservative mismanagement, people can no longer trust that the NHS will be there for us when we need it. They cut 2,000 GPs, and our island residents are finding it impossible to get an appointment. They wasted £3 billion on a top-down reorganisation, instead of investing in the equipment and technology a modern health service requires.

Having run down the NHS over fourteen years, the Conservatives will leave it on life support rather than focus on recovery. With Labour, it will be our mission to deliver an NHS that is fit for purpose.

Labour will get to work cutting NHS waiting lists which stand at

163,163 across Isle of Wight and Hampshire. We’ll put the NHS back on its feet and make it fit for the future.

We will deliver an extra 40,000 appointments a week, nationally, at evenings and weekends, paid for by clamping down on tax dodgers, because patients need doctors, not dodgers.

Labour will train thousands more doctors, nurses and midwives, and arm them with the latest technology, so patients get the best quality care. 

In government, Labour will ensure the NHS is a Neighbourhood Health Service, moving care closer to people’s homes, enabling Wootton residents to have local access to GP services, unlike The Conservatives who are taking them away.

Prevention is better than cure, so mental health will be treated as seriously as physical health. We will recruit an extra 8,500 mental health professionals, paid for by abolishing tax loopholes for the wealthiest.

Labour will bring health, social care and community services together to ensure a more holistic and efficient model that patients can depend on. We will tackle the adult social care crisis through long-term reform, establishing a world-class National Care Service.

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