Interview with Wes Streeting on Yeovil Hospital, Weston General and dentist crisis

Labour’s Wes Streeting has suggested he would not block the closure of Yeovil Hospital’s hyper-acute stroke unit if he became health secretary after the election, as he warned there is no “Labour magic wand” to fix the NHS.

Speaking to the Local Democracy Reporting Service about what a Labour government could do for the NHS in Somerset if elected, the shadow health secretary said he wanted to give it “the tools to do the job” but he would not “micromanage.” There are a host of issues facing the NHS in all parts of Somerset, from the planned loss of the hyper-acute stroke unit at Yeovil Hospital, to the lack of a 24 hour A&E at Weston General, and difficulty finding an NHS dentist across the county .

Mr Streeting said: “I think it’s an indictment on 14 years of Conservative government that the NHS is unrecognisable from the one that we handed over to them in 2010. The last Labour government delivered the shortest waiting times and the highest patient satisfaction in history. We did it before and with the support of the country on July 4 we can do it again.”

The decision by Somerset NHS’ integrated care board to close the hyper-acute stroke unit at Yeovil Hospital has been condemned by candidates to be Yeovil’s next MP. Liberal Democrat hopeful Adam Dance has called for the decision to be called in by the health secretary.

Is that something a Labour Party in government would do? Mr Streeting said: “I don’t want to see services closing and I want to see more services closer to where people live. I know lots of local leaders are having to make really difficult and in some cases unpalatable decisions because of staffing shortages and resource constraints and I want to work with them to see if we can find alternative solutions to closing services.”

But he added: “I don’t want to see anything micromanaged from London. I think decisions are better made closer to the communities that they serve — but I do know that it’s my responsibility, if I’m the next health secretary, to make sure that they’ve got the tools to do the job and I want to work with local leaders and local communities to protect services and improve them.”

On the other side of the county in Weston-super-Mare, people are still without a 24 hour A&E. Weston General’s A&E began closing overnight in 2017 as a temporary measure due to staffing issues — and seven years later nothing has changed.

Asked what Labour could do to get this open again, Mr Streeting said: “The challenge we have got where we have seen closures of things like A&E units and maternity units under the Tories, that’s been almost entirely due to safe staffing levels and the fact that the Conservatives just haven’t had a workable plan to make sure the NHS is there for us when we need it so we need to give the NHS the tools to do the job.

“That will take time and I think people know that we are not going to be able to wave a Labour magic wand and fix everything overnight but we do have a serious plan to cut NHS waiting lists, to improve access to GP practices and NHS dentistry and to make sure that the NHS is there for them when they need it after one term of Labour government. So I very much hope that people choose change on July 4.”

Meanwhile, Somerset has been branded a “dental desert” with a lack of NHS dentists. The situation is similar in Bristol, where in February hundreds queued for days to sign up for a new NHS dentists in St Pauls.

Mr Streeting, who visited the queue in February, said Labour’s plan for 700,000 more urgent dental appointments would make a “real difference, really quickly.” But he added: “I also need to fix the fundamentals in NHS dentistry, which is the broken dentistry contract — and that’s why I’ve asked the British Dentistry Association to come in the Monday after the general election if there is a Labour government to begin that process of contract reform. Because we have got dentists across the country, what we don’t have is a contract that pays them fairly and as a result we are losing dentists.”

Labour has also promised a new National Care Service to deal with social care. Quality social care is essential for many older people and paying for it has been a challenge both for people and for local councils, many of which spend more money on social care than on other services.

But with few details of the scheme in the manifesto, is it really a priority for a Labour government? Mr Streeting said: “It is a priority. It is in our manifesto. This is going to be a programme that is 10 years in the making and I want to achieve with cross party support.”

The full list of candidates standing in the Yeovil constituency is:

Independent: Steve Ashton

Reform UK: Laura Bailhache

Liberal Democrat: Adam Dance

Conservative: Marcus Fysh

Labour: Dr Rebecca Montacute

Green: Serena Wootton