As the NHS crumbles, 3,186 in Crawley left unable to work due to ill-health while the Conservatives choose to blame patients

Today’s announcement by the Prime Minister forms part of a regular pattern we are seeing, with the Conservatives refusing to take any responsibility for the problems they have created in the country.

Figures from the House of Commons library for reveal that there has been a rise of 550 people in Crawley needing to claim financial support for health reasons over the last year, an increase of around a fifth. Between December 2022 and December 2023, all 632 parliamentary constituencies in Britain saw an increase due to drivers of both physical and mental ill-health.

While the Government has sought to blame those who are sick, the reality is that this growth has largely mirrored the growing backlog in accessing NHS treatment over recent years, something economists predicted at the time would be caused by the underfunding of health services.

Instead of working to address the underlying issues, in the same week as underfunding has resulted in the loss of 24-hour urgent treatment services at Crawley Hospital, the Conservatives are trying to portray patients as workshy. It won’t work, only a united, mission focused Government can get Britain working again. Labour’s plan to help tackle one of the key drivers of worklessness before it takes hold, includes:

• Bringing down waiting times for mental health treatment by recruiting 8,500 new mental health staff
• Access to specialist mental health support in every school
• Mental health hubs for children and young people in every community

Labour has also pledged to:

• Introduce changes to incapacity benefits to remove the fear of losing their income or being reassessed if a job doesn’t work out from holding people back from applying.
• Overhaul Access to Work, so that people know what equipment, adaptations or personal support they’ll get before they start work – giving them the confidence to take the plunge.
• Reform job centres and devolving employment support so help is tailored to individual and local need.

In Crawley, 3,186 people now claim Universal Credit health benefits, with the national number up by 400,000 in a year. 2.7 million people, are now out of work due to long term sickness; economic inactivity is no longer declining from the post-pandemic high and has instead rebounded to a total of 9.3 million people; and Britain’s employment rate will be lower by the end of this year than forecast in November, and still not back to pre-pandemic levels by 2028-2029.

It is hard to overstate how important helping someone to get beck to good health is for that individual and their family, but what these figures show is that it is also critical for the British economy that we get the NHS back on its feet and help people get the jobs they need to improve their qulaity of life.

This is a problem the Tories have created, they simply cannot be trusted to fix their own mess. Labour’s plan will tackle the root causes of the issue by driving down NHS waiting lists, making work pay, and supporting people into good jobs across every part of the country, including right here in Crawley.