‘We need to retain NHS staff – we hear about nurses leaving to work in Lidl’
LABOUR’S PAULA Sherriff says she has been hearing the frustrations of NHS staff around the country who are working in a system under strain.
The Dewsbury MP has been meeting workers, campaigners and patients over the past five months after being appointed as a Shadow Minister for Mental Health and Social Care.
Ms Sherriff said: “After meeting people working in the profession, everybody is telling me that services are in an absolute crisis.”
Funding problems and rising demand on hospitals, which saw the NHS face its worst winter A&E crisis, are never far from the news. And fears over the future of healthcare are being felt strongly in Ms Sherriff ’s constituency of Dewsbury. She said: “The main problem in my own constituency is access to services. People are struggling to get an appointment with their GP.”
Dewsbury has also been at the centre of controversial changes to A&E services by two NHS trusts serving Kirklees.
Mid Yorkshire Hospitals Trust carried out a shake-up which has seen the most seriouslyill A&E patients taken directly to Pinderfields Hospitals in Wakefield, a move Ms Sherriff insists is a downgrade of Dewsbury and District Hospital.
At neighbouring Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust, more radical changes are proposed. If plans to knock down Huddersfield Royal Infirmary (HRI) go ahead, the whole of Kirklees will be without a full A&E department, it is feared.
Ms Sherriff said: “There are big concerns around HRI and Dewsbury Hospital. Pinderfields hasn’t always been coping well with capacity issues.
“Also, travelling to Pinderfields is a big deal for people, especially if you haven’t got a car. It’s absolutely clear that the NHS locally and nationally is not being given the resources it needs.”
But there is hope that the Huddersfield plan could be scrapped after an intervention by Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt. A week ago, he effectively vetoed the plans and told Calderdale and Greater Huddersfield clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) to reconsider.
Ms Sherriff welcomed the move, but voiced concerns at how the system will be funded if the plan, drawn up to plug a multi-million-pound budget gap, does not go ahead. She said: “The CCGs have been told to go back to the drawing board. But our concern is that we’ll end up in a situation where, once again, local services have to be scaled back. We need to provide the extra investment that the area needs.”
Ms Sherriff was speaking during Mental Health Awareness week, as latest figures revealed the struggles still faced by vulnerable people in need of help.
Many are still sent hundreds of miles from their local area for mental health beds, despite a Government pledge to eliminate inappropriate “out-of-area placements”. People with an episode of psychosis are facing delays getting treatment, and young people with eating disorders can wait three months or more for specialist help.
Ms Sherriff said: “If I’m really honest about it, mental health has been abandoned. It’s been a Cinderella service for some time.”
The Government has declared a commitment to “parity of esteem” – with equal importance placed on physical and mental health. But Ms Sherriff said: “We are so far away from that it is untrue.”