Last week, the NHS released the latest data on ambulance waiting times, covering the period before industrial action commenced. For all the Conservatives’ attempt to argue that the public are entitled to minimum service levels during periods of strike action, the reality is that these new figures show that 13 years of their Government has left the NHS operating below minimum service levels in their day-to-day working.
The latest response data reveals that patients requiring a category 2 response (emergencies including heart attacks and strokes) in Crawley are now waiting an average of 46 minutes and growing. With calls of this type having a target response time of 18 minutes and medical outcomes declining with every extra minute, lives in our area are being needlessly lost.
When I met with striking ambulance crews before Christmas they were keen to stress how far their industrial action was being driven by an awareness that they could not deliver the care patients deserve without a larger workforce, but that retention and recruitment were proving impossible through a combination of low pay and insufficient support to ensure they are kept safe on the job.
Every day the Conservatives a remain in office, the problem gets worse. Only Labour has a plan for getting the health service back on its feet, bringing about one of the biggest NHS workforce expansions in its history – funded by abolishing the unfair non-dom status for the super rich.
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Peter Lamb for Crawley 