BROMSGROVE Liberal Democrats are backing the party’s policy for a five-year plan to give every patient the right to see a GP within a week.
Shocking statistics show that last year, 959,922 appointments in Worcestershire and Herefordshire took longer than two weeks to happen – equating to 17.4 per cent of appointments. The figures also show 257,246 took longer than a month, 4.7 per cent of all appointments.
NHS doctor and Liberal Democrat prospective parliamentary candidate for Bromsgrove, Dr David Nicholl, backed his party’s claims that the government had ‘abandoned local health services’ and called for ‘a fair deal for patients.
He said: “Thousands of patients in Bromsgrove are facing agonisingly long waits, often in terrible pain whilst waiting to see their GP.
“The Conservative Party has proven itself totally unfit to run our NHS.
“It should not be too much to ask for patients to be able to see their GP when they need to. That is why the Liberal Democrats have committed to a fair deal for this community’s patients and legal right to see a GP within a week.”
The Lib Dems plan to deliver their promise by increasing the number of full-time equivalent GPs by 8,000, half by boosting recruitment and half from retaining more experienced GPs.
GPs’ time will be freed up by giving more prescribing rights and public health advisory services to qualified pharmacists, nurse practitioners and paramedics.
A 24/7 GP booking system would be introduced and the party says it would remove top-down bureaucracy to let practices hire the staff they need and invest in training.
