Patients 'should see the right person first time', Preston election debate told

That was the message from one of the candidates standing to be Preston’s next MP at the general election.

Joseph O’Meachair, from the Rejoin EU party, told a hustings event in the city that the speed with which a patient gets to see “the final decision maker” was a key problem for the NHS – and its patients.

“We’ve devolved those decision-making processes to people further and further down the chain of command. That has only led to an increased rate of error and increased rate of people not getting the full treatment that they need,” Mr. O’Meachair said.

Over the past five years 26,000 staff have been recruited into so-called “additional roles” within general practice.

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Other candidates seeking election in Preston on 4th July each had their own prescriptions for how to improve the health service.

Responding to a public question about pressure on GPs – and the need to retain them in the profession for longer – Liberal Democrat candidate Neil Darby said his party wanted to recruit 8,000 more local doctors to ensure “everyone can get to see a GP within seven days, or within 24 hours in an emergency”.

“The GP is our gateway to the NHS. If you cannot get that GP appointment, it doesn’t matter how serious you are, you are not going to get the care that you need,” Mr. Darby said.

Two of the candidates taking part in the event clashed over the use of the private sector to deliver NHS services.

Michael Lavalette, an independent, said private firms had made “something like £6.7bn profit from the NHS since 2012.

“So they are taking profit out of the National Health Service, rather than that being reinvested back in – so we need to get the market out of the [NHS],” Mr. Lavalette warned.

However, Preston’s MP for the last 24 years, Sir Mark Hendrick – who is once again contesting the seat for Labour – said past history proved that point wrong.

“When we came into government in [19]97, there was a three-year backlog in cataract operations.   We got that down to three weeks, because we did utilise the private sector in speeding up operations – otherwise, people [would] still have been waiting years before they got those operations done,” Mr. Hendrick added.

Conservative candidate Trevor Hart said the issues facing the NHS were “not just about funding”.

“It’s about how we do things as well. Yes, [in the Tory manifesto], there is something…to ensure that we have more doctors and more nurses, but also [about] pharmacy first [and] diagnostic centres,” he explained.

Meanwhile, David Brooks – standing for the Alliance for Democracy and Freedom – said the country should be more concerned with how it looks after its citizens before they need hospital.

“Everybody knows you are what you eat – what you put in your stomach determines how healthy you’re going to be. If you put chemicals in there, it’ll destroy your gut microbiome – if you destroy your gut microbiome, that’s your metabolism and it’s your immune system.

“Chronic metabolic disorders have skyrocketed through the roof, some at 10,000 percent in two generations,” Mr. Brooks said.

PRESTON CANDIDATE DETAILS

All 10 candidates standing for election in the Preston constituency were invited to the hustings event, staged by the Local Democracy Reporting Service, Lancashire Post, Lancashire Lead and Blog Preston.  Six of those on the ballot took part in the event.

The full list of candidates seeking election in Preston on 4th July is:

YOUSUF BHAILOK (Independent)DAVID BROOKS (Alliance for Democracy and Freedom)

NEIL DARBY (Liberal Democrats)

JAMES ELLIOT (Reform UK)

TREVOR HART (Conservative Party)

SIR MARK HENDRICK (Labour and Co-Operative Party)

DEREK KILLEEN (UKIP)

MICHAEL LAVALETTE (Independent)

ISABELLA METCALF-RIENER (Green Party)

JOSEPH O’MEACHAIR (Rejoin EU)