This month marked the 77th birthday of the NHS.
The NHS is there for us when we need it most.
It has played a vital role in public health and scientific breakthroughs- looking after our health through the introduction of vaccination programmes, regular health screenings, and developing pivotal medical technology.
I am proud that the NHS was introduced under the first Labour Government. It epitomises Labour’s belief that high-quality, reliable healthcare should be available to all.
Previous Conservative Governments have starved our health services of the resources and support that they so desperately need, and one of the things that I hear from people in Barnsley most often is that they are struggling to get GP appointments, or access the health care that they need.
When Labour formed this Government in July 2024, one of the first commitments that we made was to build an NHS fit for the future.
By the start of July 2025, we had exceeded our targets, delivering four million extra appointments, recruiting nearly 2,000 more frontline GPs, and taking nearly a quarter of a million people off waiting lists.
This month, we announced new measures to get our health service back on track. With the development of new technologies, medicine, and innovation, we have a unique opportunity to deliver better care for all patients.
This Government will take this opportunity, reshaping and rebuilding the NHS to bring healthcare closer to home, by launching a Neighbourhood Health Service.
This will bring together teams under one roof, set up across the country, meaning that access to health care is more easily accessible, and will provide a range of services in the community, sparing lengthy trips to hospitals.
The neighbourhood health centres will include teams like nurses, doctors, social care workers, pharmacists, health visitors, palliative, care staff, and paramedics. They will also include community health workers and volunteers, who will reach out to the community to detect early signs of illness, providing treatment before they get serious enough to require hospitalisation.
This will mean that shifted out of hospitals and into the community, freeing up overstretched hospitals’ capacity so that they can focus on delivering the best, most cutting-edge, and personalised care.
These steps will help to bring down waiting times even further, and alleviate the pressure that hospitals have been under for years.
It is so important that people across the country can access the healthcare that they need, no matter who they are or where they live.
For too long, this has simply not been the case.
I am proud that this Labour Government are stepping up, and delivering the change that we need to ensure that we can continue to rely on our brilliant NHS for generations to come.