James Allen
Mr Allen has lived in the constituency for over thirty years, before that he had experience living overseas in California and Hawaii. He told the Echo "Seeing the US health care system at first hand makes you really appreciate our NHS. However, just a couple of years after clapping NHS staff during covid, we now have multiple strikes and a big problem retaining our heroic medical staff. We must ensure they stay in the NHS and in order to do that the government must pay them internationally competitive salaries. It is the only way we have to keep them doing the jobs we so desperately need. Employing agency staff is very costly and stripping third world countries of their medics is totally unethical."
Letter to The Echo - 21/09/23
Appalling state of NHS waiting times
There is much mention over the last couple of days over the state of the NHS waiting lists in our area. The NHS figures speak for themselves – in September 2023:-
• Southend – 210 per 1,000 are on waiting lists.
• Mid Essex – 180 per 1,000
• Castle Point and Rochford – 175 per 1,000
And yet
• Berkshire West - 60 per 1,000
We in our area deserve an NHS that is there to look after us when they are in need, yet our waiting list are 3 ½ times worse than Berkshire.
The Liberal Democrats said the “terrifying” figures show Ministers have let our area “grind to a halt” under the pressure of growing NHS backlogs, on NHS waiting lists.
The party has criticised the Conservative government for failing to prioritise the NHS in the recent Autumn Statement despite the huge economic impact of people unable to return to work because they are waiting for treatment.
Separate ONS figures show that a record high 2.6 million people are inactive across the country are out of work due to long-term sickness, up from two million in 2019.
The Liberal Democrats have set out a plan to fix the crisis in NHS and care, including giving people a legal right to see their GP within seven days, increasing the Carer’s Minimum Wage to tackle soaring vacancies, and giving people a guarantee to begin cancer treatment within 62 days of being diagnosed.
Liberal Democrat spokesperson for Rochford and Southend East, James Allen said:
“People in [AREA] deserve an NHS that is there to look after them when they are in need. Instead, this Conservative government has run our local health services into the ground.
“It should not be too much to ask for people in South Essex to be able to get a GP appointment when they need one or get the treatment they deserve in time.
“That is why the Liberal Democrats are calling for urgent investment in the NHS to bring down waiting lists as the health service prepares for yet another winter crisis under this Conservative government.
“The Prime Minister’s abject failure to bring down the NHS backlogs like he promised is having real consequences for our community. Far too many people are being made to suffer unnecessarily at the hands of the Conservative party’s incompetence.”
Notes to Editors:
Full figures from the House of Commons Library available here The data provided was ‘patients waiting for hospital treatment at sub-ICB level’.
NHS data shows around 6.5 million people are waiting for 7.8 million courses of elective hospital treatment in England.
This means the actual number of patients on waiting lists at local level is likely to be slightly lower than the number of Incomplete Patient Pathways given by the Commons Library.
The numbers are not patients waiting as a percentage population since the Referral To Treatment waits might not reflect a single patient.
Therefore, the appropriate interpretation of this would be to present the waiting list numbers (incomplete pathways) as a rate per 1,000 population rather than as percentage of the population.
James Allen
Liberal Democrat Spokesperson for Rochford and Southend East