I come from a medical family and am married to a doctor, our NHS staff do incredible work. It is our most precious public service and I passionately support the NHS.

This Autumn, 300 new nurse recruits are joining  Broomfield, Basildon and Southend Hospitals where over £118m capital investment is being made in hospital buildings and sites to increase the total number of hospital beds by at least fifty, build new and efficient operating theatres and improve technology to make it easier to work across sites. New specialist services have been introduced. The first phase involves vascular, urology, radiology and Orthopedic services.  Around 2,500 patients per year will benefit from improved access to care, waiting less time for treatment and fewer delays in accessing specialist emergency care. Increased investment has gone into A&E Services at Broomfield hospital including a new “Emergency Village” Broomfield has also opened a new ward providing modern, dementia-friendly facilities for elderly patients. It is excellent news that Broomfield will retain it's 24 hour A&E service. I will always fight to maintain 24 hour emergency services at Broomfield. This is very important for Chelmsford. 

Our new medical school at Anglia Ruskin University is now training 100 new doctors every year.  It is extremely successful and places were 12 times oversubscribed for the 2019 intake.  Anglia Ruskin University and Broomfield Hospital have been extremely successful at new apprentice style training courses for nurses. As Chelmsford’s MP I have been pressing for more financial support for those taking nursing degrees especially in key areas such as adult nursing and mental health. 

The Government has recently announced a Long Term Plan for the NHS . This was developed in partnership with those who know the NHS best – frontline health and care staff, patients and their families and other experts. It follows the announcement of an additional £33.9 billion a year for the NHS by 2023-24. This means the NHS will receive an average 3.4 per cent a year real-terms increase.

There will be a new focus on prevention – with £4.5 billion being invested in primary and community care – personal responsibility and promoting good health, and more rapid diagnostics and new treatments that will improve the care you receive. The plan will ensure that the NHS is:

• Providing the best maternity care in the world – by continuing to improve maternity safety and providing greater mental health support to new parents.
• Supporting ageing and increasing independence – by bringing different health and care teams together to make sure older people are getting the support they need to remain independent, avoiding unnecessary hospital admissions.
• Improving outcomes for all major conditions – through better prevention, detection, treatment and recovery from serious diseases, so people live longer and healthier.
• Increasing the NHS workforce – with tens of thousands more doctors, nurses and other health professionals.
• Bringing the NHS into the digital age – rolling out new digital technologies to deliver improved access to NHS services so everyone in the country will have digital access to their GP, including being able to make appointments, manage prescriptions and view their health records online.
• Cutting waste across the NHS – including through introducing new digital techniques and making back office savings of more than £700 million across the NHS.