I love the NHS; everything it does and stands for. The dedicated staff and the miracles they perform. And I love the fact that a radical Labour politician brought it into being – Nye Bevan.
I spent 20 years as a clinician and health union leader, have overseen policy development and today focus on the NHS as a politician, not least as Vice Chair of the powerful Health and Social Care Select Committee.
I was even born on the NHS birthday! The NHS is in my blood.
But I am honest enough to recognise that it is broken, the staff are burnt out and the public, frustrated.
I’ve been on my rounds engaging with local leaders again. What are we going to do?
Labour picked the NHS off its knees last time we were in power, and the task ahead is more daunting this time around.
I have met with many who are instituting change. They have shared their hopes and challenges.
Everyone says that we need to do things differently. Medicine is evolving at pace. Diagnostics more accurate by machines than the human eye. Precision medicine driving a personalised approach. IT and AI now playing a central role.
While this is mind-blowing, it seems getting the basics right is another thing altogether.
We are all born and will die, and yet maternity services are not delivering as they should and end of life care will fall apart if basic funding is not found.
We need to keep healthier: yet poor housing, pressured lifestyles and punishing work and school regimes are making us ill – physically, mentally, emotionally and socially. All could be solved with the leadership and ambition needed.
And as we are all too aware, when we need to see an NHS dentist, they simply aren’t there. I know it’s the same for the GP, but this is where some innovation is helping.
Last week I toured York visiting pharmacists. Pharmacists are highly trained clinicians who know more about pills and potions than anyone in the NHS. For the last two months they have stepped up to be the first port of call for treating patients. You can drop in or make an appointment.
In the first month of Pharmacy First, 50,000 people received care. The ambition is for 2 million.
So far, they have been able to diagnose seven separate conditions: sinusitis, sore throat, earache, infected insect bite, impetigo, shingles, and uncomplicated urinary tract infections in women. Some have taken on hypertension and contraception services too. In addition, they can vaccinate, measure vital health signs and can prescribe.
In Wales they are now working with 30 different conditions.
In months to come, I hope they will be able to review your drugs, manage long term conditions and provide essential diagnostic checks alongside health and wellbeing services.
Every pharmacist I spoke to loves their new roles. They found it fulfilling and were chuffed when someone left their chemist with the medicine needed – all on the same day, no waits.
Some they had to refer into A&E or the GP, but that was OK, as they were able to rapidly escalate. They are also saving the NHS a significant amount of money.
No long waits on the GP phoneline or hours languishing in A&E departments – instead, straight in, seen and sorted. And if more care is needed, then the patient is already triaged and ready to go.
The beauty of Pharmacy First has been the enormous patient satisfaction, GP waiting times have been freed up and A&E is left for the really sick.
Try it and see for yourself.
However, as I popped in, I also heard how three pharmacies had recently closed in York. How buying prescribed drugs was like gambling on the stock exchange as prices fluctuated to profit the industry and how all the cost risks placed on local pharmacies make high street chemists financially vulnerable.
As staff raced around the dispensary with no second to spare, I went back to Westminster to make the case for Pharmacy First to roll out more.
Yet getting the basics right must be Government’s priority if we’re to have pharmacies at all.
The NHS has to change, but for it to function, the Government has to change too.
Rachael Maskell is the Labour MP for York Central
