You can’t fix the NHS without fixing care, says Helen Morgan

The MP told the House of Commons that a GP in North Shropshire contacted her after the Budget to suggest the NIC hike could ‘kill the family doctor’ and create a bigger problem in NHS and care services.

GP practices are not eligible for Employment Allowance and have no flexibility over prices. This means that any increase in tax can only lead to cuts in staff and services, unless the Government steps in to fund the cover.

Helen, now the Liberal Democrat spokesperson for Health and Care, has long argued that much of Shropshire’s problem with long ambulance waiting times and queues at A&E goes back to poor primary care services. If people cannot see a GP or access care, it increases the chance they have no choice but to ring 999.

The MP also said that social care felt like the ‘elephant in the room’ with the Budget not going far enough to address it.

Lib Dem MPs are calling for the Government to either exempt GP practices from the NIC hike or fund the difference, and are making the case that the NHS cannot be fixed without first addressing primary care services.

Helen also used the debate on public services to argue that rural areas like Shropshire were being let down by other tax changes, referencing parents hit by the introduction of VAT on school fees who were using SEND provision at Oswestry School, and the continued lack of ambition for rural public transport.

Helen Morgan MP told the House of Commons, “It's hard to believe that a decision to increase employers national insurance contributions and also lower the threshold at a cost of £566 per person can have been properly thought through before the budget was delivered last Wednesday.

“That decision is going to hit GP practises, it's going to hit hospices, it's going to hit social care providers and it's going to hit the charities that provide so much additional care outside the formal NHS structure.

“A local GP got in touch with me over the weekend to say this decision will serve to directly undermine access and patient care at a time when practises are already under strain due to years of neglect.

“Another said, it will kill the family doctor, because GP practices aren't eligible for Employment Allowance, they can't put up their prices and their only option is to cut staff and services, and that would be a disaster.

“Liberal Democrats are calling on the Government either to exempt GPs from this NIC hike or to ensure that they are funded to cover it.”

On care services and ambulance waiting times, the MP added, “You can’t fix the NHS without fixing care.

“We know that there are thousands of patients in hospital who are medically fit to be discharged and would recover better at home, in their own bed, but who are stuck in hospital because the social care packages are not available.

“Bed-blocking causes patients to be unable to flow through a hospital when they arrive to be admitted, it causes those queues of 12, 13, 14 ambulances that we see outside hospitals in Shropshire, and it means those ambulances don’t arrive when someone is in a life-threatening position.”