Access to Primary Healthcare

Olly Glover Excerpts

Wednesday 16th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Olly Glover (Didcot and Wantage) (LD)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan) on introducing this debate. I echo her call on the Government to boost access to GPs, NHS dentists and community pharmacists. In my Oxfordshire constituency, the growing number of people moving into the area has not been matched by an increase in GP, dentist or pharmacy services. Indeed, frustration with the terrible Conservative track record on these health issues was a major factor in my election to this place in July.

In Great Western Park in Didcot, where more than 5,000 people now live, there lies a site ready to be developed into a GP surgery, and there is money from the developers to build it. However, the local NHS body responsible for building it and providing the doctors, nurses and other support staff sadly has struggled to marshal the resources to do so. I call on the Government to prioritise supporting NHS bodies and to provide the mechanisms for bringing forward primary healthcare.

Meanwhile, many people in my constituency, particularly in Didcot, often cannot see a GP without the early morning telephone rush that my colleagues have articulately summarised, hoping to get one of the precious slots. At the GP surgery in Didcot at which I am registered, it is even a challenge to get an online appointment, with a two-minute window granted once a week to try to fill in an e-consult form—a process that generally defeats me for non-urgent matters.

Like my colleagues, I hear from dentists in my constituency that the funding they receive for their NHS patients is barely enough to break even. It is no wonder that private dentistry dominates in my constituency, from Wallingford to Grove, Wantage and Didcot. As my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Dr Chambers) articulated, mental health services—particularly child and adolescent services—are also under strain.

All of these services need better support, so I call on the Government to take action and recognise that, as Lord Darzi said in his report, improving access to primary healthcare will significantly relieve pressure on A&E and, indeed, the need for cancer treatment by enabling earlier diagnosis and therefore proactive intervention.