Announcing The Plan for Patients

I welcome the newly appointed Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Therese Coffey’s recent announcement to tackle head on, the challenges that my residents are experiencing in the NHS and social care system.

Under the ‘New Plan for Patients,’ the Secretary of State has highlighted four headline areas requiring urgent attention and improvement, focussing on ambulances, backlogs in the NHS, care, doctors, and dentists.

I know how incredibly important these areas are to you because I’ve listened to people’s personal stories telling me how difficult it is to find an NHS dentist, how long you’ve waited either in A&E or for an ambulance to arrive, or to obtain a GP appointment. I recognise that the waits and delays are not good enough, and that is why I am determined to ensure that your voices and experiences are reflected back to Government, to drive the change, you deserve, and the highest standards of service and care.

In recent weeks I have shared local experiences with the Chief Executive of the East of England Ambulance Service Trust (EEAST) supporting them to improve ambulance waiting times. You can read about their improvement plan at https://www.eastamb.nhs.uk/Policies/strategies/EEAST%20Quality%20Improvement%20Strategy.pdf.

The Secretary of State has announced that changes are planned for dental contracts and incentivising dentists to take on more NHS work. In Norwich North, access to NHS dentistry is a key issue I have been working on for some time. I was delighted to see the appointment of new dental contracts over the summer, following my campaign highlighting the frustrations residents have in finding accessible and local NHS dental care. You can read about my extensive dental campaigning here.

I will be following the progress of the plan closely and continuing to represent your concerns to ensure that Norwich North constituents benefit from proposed improvements in the NHS and social care system. As the plan develops, I will share those details with you, and, as always, I warmly welcome your feedback on the proposals.

I’d like to take this opportunity to praise and thank the workforce across the NHS and ambulance service for the incredible work that they do day in, day out. I continue to offer my support to you where needed.

More information on the plan for patients is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/our-plan-for-patients/our-plan-for-patients

If I can help constituents with any matter, please do email me at: chloe@chloesmith.org.uk or call me on 01603 414756.