Autumn Statement Resolutions

Sarah Dyke Excerpts

Monday 27th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Dyke (Somerton and Frome) (LD)]

As the 562nd woman to be elected to this place, I welcome the hon. Member for Tamworth (Sarah Edwards), who is the 563rd and also another Sarah.

This Conservative Government have left families to struggle, without access to vital health services and with food inflation at 10%, while trying to manage sky-high mortgage repayments. The Government’s response is to claim to cut taxes while taking £45 billion a year through frozen thresholds and stealth tax hikes, and punishing those who are too sick to work or are unable to afford vital medical treatment. My constituents across Somerton and Frome have told me that they want access to three things: dentists, GPs and pharmacies. This autumn statement will do nothing to resolve the national crises that those essential health services are facing. The Government seem unable to understand that a healthy economy needs a healthy population, and both those things require a healthy NHS.

I am unsure whether this Government are aware of just how bad things are in rural Somerset. Our dentist services are in decay: in 2022, only 38% of adults in Somerset were able to access a dentist in the previous two years. That statistic is no surprise, given that there is only one dentist delivering NHS services for every 1,773 people in the county. Many dentists in Somerton and Frome tell me they are closing their lists, and there are no NHS dentists currently taking on new adult patients. On the doorsteps, I meet more and more people who, shockingly, have turned to DIY dentistry out of desperation. The Government should have heeded Liberal Democrat calls to begin to address this crisis, because access to dentistry is an essential part of healthcare, not a cosmetic benefit.

According to the Resolution Foundation, going into the autumn statement the Chancellor had fiscal headroom for additional spending worth an extra £13 billion a year. The Liberal Democrats would have used that windfall to tackle the NHS crisis and end DIY dentistry and the dental deserts we now see across Somerset, giving people the quality care they deserve and allowing more people to return to work to grow our economy. Instead, the Government are slashing the NHS budget by £5 billion next year.

My constituents are also unable to access GP services. A constituent has recently informed me that they contacted their GP regarding severe inner ear pain, but they were unable to get an appointment with their local GP. This forced them to seek expensive private treatment for something that, if left untreated, would have had a detrimental impact on their quality of life. Another constituent struggled to get an appointment to look at a hernia, but after waiting in pain for weeks, they were forced to go private. They were then diagnosed with an incarcerated hernia—a condition that can be life-threatening if left untreated.

The number of GPs in Somerset has declined by 59 since December 2016, and a fully qualified GP in Somerset now has 2,157 patients. However, this is not isolated just to Somerset. People living in South Cambridgeshire, for example, are also feeling the acute effects of a lack of GP services. Here, there is one fully qualified GP for every 2,420 patients, which is 120 more patients per fully qualified GP than the England average. The Liberal Democrats would have used the extra £13 billion to deliver 8,000 more GPs and create 65 million more appointments every year.

Finally, pharmacies play a vital role in rural areas. Pharmacists are qualified clinical professionals who help remove some of the immense burden on hospitals and GPs, yet the Government continue to treat them as an afterthought. We are about to see a pharmacy in Wincanton close, which will only increase pressures and force residents to travel further to access a pharmacy. Community pharmacies are facing financial pressures and a recruitment crisis. We need to ensure their viability and sustainability nationwide. The Liberal Democrats would provide urgent emergency funding to keep pharmacies open and reverse closures, alongside providing pharmacies with greater prescribing rights to ease pressures on GPs.

Instead of investing in our NHS, growing the economy and helping people with the cost of living crisis, all the Conservatives have to offer is more chaos and mismanagement. The Liberal Democrats have a long-term plan for the NHS, but this Government either do not get it, or they simply do not care.