Shocking Shropshire ambulance delay raised in Darzi Report debate

North Shropshire MP Helen Morgan raised the case of a constituent ‘failed’ by a two-hour wait after a category one ambulance call, as part of her contribution to the Commons debate on the Darzi Report into the NHS.

The report states that the NHS is in a ‘critical condition’ and that since 2015, the NHS has missed every target for A&E, cancer, and hospital treatment wait times.

Helen Morgan has previously said that the Labour Government must make good on their election pledges and urgently invest in NHS services, saying that she felt rural areas had been ‘left behind’ over many years, and required additional investment to deal with an ageing population and the higher cost of providing services like care due to longer travel times.

In yesterday’s debate, Helen Morgan called on the Labour Government to make fixing the NHS and care its top priority, to recruit more GPs, and enter cross-party talks on tackling the crisis in social care.

The North Shropshire MP also spoke about a constituent of hers who had faced a two hour wait for a category one emergency.

Helen Morgan MP told the Commons:

“The findings of the Darzi Report are shocking. But to Liberal Democrats, they echo the hundreds of thousands of conversations we had with people on the doorstep, right across the country, throughout the election campaign.

“The message the British people sent at the General Election in July was very, very clear. Fixing the health and care crisis must be this Government's number one priority.

“In my constituency of North Shropshire, almost 20% of urgent referrals took more than 43 days and 10% over 62 days. The target is 28 days. This is truly heartbreaking. We know that every day counts for patients battling cancer.

“Young people needing help with their mental health are waiting months and even years to access cams. There's no help for them until they are in crisis. And as if all that weren't bad enough, we have hospitals that are literally crumbling. A maintenance backlog of 11.6 billion pounds and buildings decades past their use by date. Shocking.”

Helen Morgan MP also used an example of a North Shropshire constituency who was ‘failed’ by the ambulance service:

“I recently spoke to a constituent, Emma, whose eleven year old daughter Charlotte suffers from a medical condition, which means she is red flagged or a category one priority patient in the case of a medical emergency.

“Unfortunately, both Emma and Charlotte were recently involved in a car crash. Charlotte urgently needed an ambulance, but after 2 hours of waiting, her father decided to take her to hospital in the back of his car instead. As she starts her new journey into senior school this autumn, her family have had to devise their own response network to keep her safe and secure and allow her to attend school in confidence.

“Our ambulance service failed Charlotte and her family when they were in crisis and we cannot let this continue.”