We asked the 2024 Election candidates for the Huntingdon constituency to tell us what they thought about the current state of the NHS, and comment on hospital and dentistry waiting times.
Chan Abraham (Changing Britain For Good, Independent)
"I understand the problems because I have worked with the NHS over many years and, this week, staff and patients confidentially shared their concerns with me.
Longer waiting lists since Covid; patients complaining about not getting appointments; staff frustrated about “no shows”; NHS dentistry not covering half the population; staff shortages and long working hours creating physical and mental health problems; doctors leaving for better conditions abroad and staff feeling unappreciated and demoralised.
The answer is effective leadership and management, wiser use of the massive NHS budget (£182 billion in 2022-23) and minimal political interference.
Alongside comprehensive leadership training, I would launch a root-and-branch investigation requiring every manager and non-executive director to explain how they are part of the solution and not the problem; radically reform the organisation, removing unproductive jobs, activities and bureaucracy that don’t directly improve people’s health.
We can use this money, plus £27 billion from potentially wasteful central budgets to restore free dental preventative treatments and check-ups for everyone, improve staff pay and retention, and accelerate new recruitment and training.
This will reduce patient waiting times, staff working hours, stress and illness and to get the NHS out of ICU."
Alex Bulat (Labour)
"I am sure we would agree that we must protect our NHS - free at the point of use for all, and a British institution we can all be proud of.
I know how people feel waiting for appointments, because I am on a multiple-year NHS waiting list myself and I have been on a several months waiting list in the past. I had friends wait for ambulances for hours, I have met families not being able to find an NHS dentist anywhere locally.
As a county councillor, I have already been vocal and active ensuring our residents' concerns on healthcare are represented.
Before I was a Parliamentary candidate, as a councillor, I worked with Toothless in Huntingdon to bring a successful motion to council calling for reform in NHS dental contracts pushing dentists into private practice.
This motion also focussed on local-level actions such as encouraging our Integrated Care Board (ICB) to explore whether mobile dentistry could work for our area, and a stronger focus on promoting oral education in schools as part of our council's public health function. We had a scrutiny session focussed on dentist access as a result of this collaborative work.
The reality is that despite the hard work of all NHS staff, local health groups and councils, we need a fresh start nationally to see the changes we need. In 2010, the NHS had the lowest waiting lists on record and the highest patient satisfaction in history.
But over the last 14 years, things have gotten worse, not better.
One of the first, practical things a new Labour Government can do is to cut NHS waiting times with 40,000 more appointments each week, including during evenings and weekends, paid for by cracking down on tax avoidance and non-dom loopholes.
Georgie Hunt (Green Party)
"Our NHS is at breaking point, with 14 years of underinvestment creating a managed decline in the quality of care and staff retention and wellbeing.
A huge number of people are on hospital waiting lists, with a disproportionate impact on people here in Huntingdon.
Under increasing pressure, it’s no wonder that NHS staff have taken unprecedented strike action to raise the alarm about this crisis.
We need a clear, long-term commitment to the NHS, and a halt to further privatisation of our health services — in response, the Green Party has committed to invest £50 billion per year by 2030 into health and social care.
We would invest in improved access to GPs to ease pressure on the rest of the NHS, reducing waiting lists, and boosting NHS salaries to encourage our valuable health workers to stay in the sector.
I won’t pretend that nursing the NHS back to health after years of neglect will come cheap, but there is money to fund this. While so many in the UK are facing a cost-of-living crisis, our multi-millionaires and billionaires are getting richer. By asking the very richest pay their fair share through a modest one per cent Wealth Tax, we will be able to fix our broken public services."
Mark Argent (Lib Dem)
"Our NHS would anyway be under strain because we are living longer, and we’re still seeing some long-term effects of Covid because of treatments that had to be delayed.
But, well before Covid, waiting lists were rising and there is a sense that it is under strain.
Canvassing in Sawtry recently someone told me of having had to wait for more than a month to see a GP. They are not alone: there were 1,113,854 instances of people waiting that long last year in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough last year. We’re also seeing people wait as much as 24 hours in A&E before going to a ward.
The Liberal Democrat manifesto has ambitious plans change this. They include an extra 8000 GPs (from boosting recruitment and retaining more experienced GPs) so no-one has to wait more than a week to see a doctor, attracting dentists back into the NHS with improved contracts, and a range of improvements to mental health and cancer services. We’re also planning to introduce free personal care for those who need it.
These improvements will cost around £9Bn a year, which we’ll find by closing a loophole on Capital Gains Tax and increasing levies on banks."
Ben Obese-Jecty (Conservative)
Waiting lists are down from their 2021 peak and though progress is steady, the Government’s plan is working.
Here in Huntingdon, we are extremely fortunate to have a vital healthcare resource in Hinchingbrooke Hospital.
I've already met with the hospital's chief executive to discuss the construction of the new theatre block as well as the proposed hospital rebuild.
I fully support Hinchingbrooke's plans to build a new hospital on the site and will campaign to secure the funding for the redevelopment and raised this with the Health Secretary Victoria Atkins when I met with her in February.
Earlier this year I also met with the CEO of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Integrated Care Board to discuss the changes that would be needed in order to improve GP access and dental access; a significant challenge to which there is not a simple or easy solution. Our £200m backed Dental Recovery Plan has already created 2.5m additional appointments.
The Conservatives rolled out Pharmacy First in February with 135 Pharmacies registered to participate in Cambridgeshire, speeding up access to healthcare and relieving pressure on GP surgeries by allowing pharmacists to treat seven common conditions.
In this election we’ve already pledged to expand this to include more conditions and create further capacity, although figures for Cambridgeshire and Peterborough for the first quarter of this year show that Pharmacy First referrals were at 33 per cent There is still work to do in raising public awareness of the Pharmacy First programme."
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