We are incredibly fortunate in Sevenoaks to have access to an excellent community hospital, which I was pleased to visit at the end of September. As I was shown round, I heard about their brilliant work here in the constituency providing inpatient and outpatient care – including blood tests, pregnancy and maternal services, as well as having an Urgent Treatment Centre (UTC). This means that local residents are able to benefit from high quality care in our community, helping to avoid longer journeys to the large hospitals just outside the district and taking some of the pressure off other NHS services.
The hospital is not immune from wider staffing shortage issues, which I heard directly from staff there. While the Government has made welcome progress on recruitment, and the NHS now has more doctors and nurses than ever before, I know that pressures remain high. Through my role on the Health Select Committee, I am working with MPs across all political parties to address some of these issues, and we recently published the report for our inquiry into the workforce. If you are interested in reading more about the Committee’s work, or the recommendations we made to the Government, you can find more details online at https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/81/health-and-social-care-committee/
My thanks go to Ian Philip, Chairman of the League of Friends of Sevenoaks Hospital, Grahame Hardy, the Dementia Lead for KCHFT, and everyone else I met during my visit for showing me the excellent work that Sevenoaks Hospital does in our community. I will do all I can to support it.
