NHS Winter Crisis

Mohammad Yasin Excerpts

Wednesday 10th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mohammad Yasin (Bedford) (Lab)]

I will concentrate on my main point in the 90 seconds being given to me.

NHS staff have said that this winter crisis was predictable and preventable. Bedford Hospital NHS Trust was one of the 24 trusts that issued a warning saying they were at full capacity. Patients, including many elderly and frail people, are routinely stuck in the back of ambulances in logjams waiting to get into A&E. The NHS is coping with an increase in demand, while being severely underfunded. We have also learned that Bedford walk-in medical centre in Putnoe is now under threat. Some 40% of our walk-in centres nationwide have closed under the Tories since 2010. Commissioners take decisions in response to budgetary constraints and cut services that are on the face of it costly to provide, but the human costs of such cuts are catastrophic, especially in places such as Bedford, whose hospital is already struggling to cope.

I finish by thanking all the staff who worked hard over Christmas and gave their time, when they could have spent it enjoying time with their families.