Letter to Health Secretary
11th July 2024
Dear Mr Streeting,
I am writing to you firstly to welcome you to your post as the new Secretary of State for Health and Social Care and secondly to impress upon you the need to save our local GP surgeries.
During the general election I spoke to thousands of people in my Lewes constituency and heard the same story over and over again. They told me of the long waits to see their GP and the 8am scramble to get an appointment.
Under the Conservatives local health services have been completely neglected, leaving too many of my constituents waiting in pain and distress. As you will know, the lack of access to GPs means more people are ending up in A&E or even needing an ambulance, putting undue pressure on the NHS.
In Seaford, a town of over 25,000 people, there is no modern health centre. The town's two GP surgeries are overwhelmed and in desperate need of new facilities to meet the needs of residents. In Willingdon, residents had a large housing development forced on them against their wishes. As part of the development they are supposed to get a new health facility but there is no funding for it.
As a Liberal Democrat I ran on a manifesto to save the NHS. On primary care we put forward ambitious plans to boost GP numbers by 8,000 and fix our crumbling GP surgery buildings.
I welcome the funding you have put forward to rebuild our GP practices. It is now critical that those resources reach Lewes constituency if people are to feel the difference.
As well as funding for GPs, we desperately need an Emergency Health and Care Budget as soon as possible. If people are to receive the care they need, there must be urgent investment in the NHS which has been run into the ground by the Conservatives. This budget must include measures to end the crisis in social care, get people the cancer treatment they need, and boost the number of NHS dentist appointments.
I look forward to hearing from you urgently on this matter.
Yours sincerely,
James MacCleary
Liberal Democrat MP for Lewes