In many parts of Bicester and Woodstock constituency it’s a real struggle to get a GP appointment and in some places though the doctors are brilliant, the facilities are crumbling, cramped and inaccessible.
I’ve felt the NHS crumble as I’ve tried to care for my elderly mum- planning precisely how to use the 7 or 8 mins we’d have with the doctor before each difficult trip to the surgery. I’ve felt it as I’ve wondered myself whether to see the doctors about something bothering me but decided instead not to bother them. I’m sure you’ve felt it too.
Residents in Bicester and surrounding villages tell me it takes weeks to get anything other than an urgent appointment. The town has grown but the infrastructure has not grown alongside it. Woodstock has a surgery that I’ve heard described as ‘cold war era’. There are challenges in Kidlington too, with NHS dentistry almost impossible to secure.
For over a decade, local and national politicians have failed to adapt to our changing national demographics or grasp opportunities to plan for the future.
The Liberal/Tory coalition back in 2010 marked the start of a long period of decline in investment growth, and with it, higher waiting lists year on year. Look at the graph below. The sharp rise in waiting lists you see in 2010 marked the Lib Dem facilitated austerity years, under Tory Chancellor George Osborne. It’s a reminder that neither the Liberals or the Tories can be trusted with our NHS.
Labour has a national plan to turn things around. You can read the plan here. It includes a commitment to train more GPs and ‘end the 8am scramble’ for GP appointments, as well as plans to link social care more closely in with health and invest in thousands of mental health staff.
But local change is crucial to secure health benefits for Bicester, Kidlington and Woodstock too.
Our MP and councillors have not pushed hard enough on our behalf.
I attended the Woodstock Town Council AGM last week (26.3.24) and was astonished to hear the Town Council Mayor telling the local Liberal Democrat councillors they were so focused on opposing housing development they forgot to negotiate money to help pay for infrastructure needs - such as health and transport. This is called Section 106 money.
“We all spend a lot of time arguing about whether a development goes ahead or not and then forget to negotiate the S106 element” said Woodstock Mayor, Nick Manby-Brown at the meeting.
This reveals that, as the town has grown, opportunities to find the money and negotiate land to sort the surgery problem in Woodstock are being missed. Given the physical state of the surgery, and the volume of local development this is unforgivable. Woodstock’s Tory MP clearly hasn’t got things moving either.
Even when local MP David Cameron was Prime Minister, Woodstock couldn’t secure central NHS funding to sort out the surgery - which has been raised by local residents as an issue for well over a decade.
When the Tories are in charge, even with the PM as your local MP, you can’t get the basics.
The chance to start afresh can’t come soon enough. As Labour says in its plan “This is not just about getting the NHS back on its feet, it’s about making sure it can never be pushed to the floor again.”
The NHS is on its knees. I care about this. It matters to me and my kids. It mattered to my mother. It matters to everyone I know and almost every resident I meet. We feel it Bicester, Kidlington, Woodstock and the villages. We need a Labour government to turn things around before it’s too late. If elected this will be my top priority.