South Cotswolds MP says 10 year NHS plan was a “missed opportunity” to break from years of Conservative neglect

South Cotswolds Liberal Democrat MP, Dr Roz Savage, has said that the 10-year plan for the NHS announced by the Government  on 3 July risks being a “missed opportunity” to rebuild local health services, after social care was treated as “barely an afterthought”.

Roz also said that the 10-year plan’s failure to include funding for rural GPs, such as a replacement for the Tolsey Surgery in Sherston, was “a real blow” to efforts to rebuild local health services. Keeping a GP surgery in Sherston would provide the primary care facilities that are so crucial for the local community.

Roz called on the Government to commit to investing in a GP surgery in Sherston after its omission from the 10-year plan, and to speed up the review into social care so it can be completed by the end of this year, not in the three years currently planned.

Roz commented:  “This was a missed opportunity to break with the years of Conservative neglect that pushed our NHS to breaking point. Social care was barely an afterthought, and the Tolsey Surgery in Sherston has been completely ignored.

The Government is showing an unwillingness to rise to the challenge and take the action needed to rebuild our local health services, so that people here in the South Cotswolds no longer have to wait weeks to see a GP or struggle to find an NHS dentist.

I will continue to push ministers until they deliver on providing funding to run a new GP surgery in Sherston and fix the crisis in social care. Only then will we see the meaningful change that people in the South Cotswolds are crying out for that can rebuild our local health services.”

ENDS