Putney's better with Labour

Putney's health: better with Labour

The choice on public services

How safe will our NHS be under the Conservatives?

Last year Conservative MEP Dan Hannan became flavour of the month amongst right wing commentators and Conservatives when he poured scorn on the NHS and dismissed it as a sixty year mistake. His party, which earlier that year had worked so hard to get him re-elected to the European Parliament, distanced themselves from him and assured us that he didn't speak for party policy.

More recently it emerged that a Conservative pressure group called Nurses for Reform had secured an hour-long meeting with Conservative leader David Cameron in the House of Commons. Nurses for Reform have branded the NHS a "Soviet-style calamity" and wish to see much greater commercialisation of our health service. Commercialisation is code on the right for "privatisation".

Now it emerges that there are other groups with strong links to the Conservative Party who also despise the NHS. This week the press has widely reported that leaders of the Young Britons Foundation (YBF) have been espousing similarly unsavoury and extreme views about the NHS (and a lot more).

The YBF chief executive, Donal Blaney, has penned an article entitled "Scrap the NHS, not just targets" in which he askes "Would it not now be better to say that the NHS - in its current incarnation - is finished?"

So what has this got to do with Cameron's "Compassionate Conservatives" you might be asking? Well, all these groups have strong links to the senior echelons of the Conservative Party. Indeed, the YBF's ties to the Conservative frontbench are so close that both Conservative Party chairman, Eric Pickles MP, and the shadow defence secretary, Liam Fox MP, spoke at the annual YBF parliamentary rally at the House of Commons, which was chaired by Blaney.

Blaney, incidentally was sacked from being chair of Conservative Future for being too right-wing: quite a feat as anyone who knows the background of the Young Conservative movement will be able to attest.

But with people like Blaney pulling the strings behind the scenes, if the Conservatives win the next election, how safe do you think our NHS will be?

Target cancer

Signing up to the Cancer Commitment

Recently I signed up to Cancer Research UK's Cancer Commitment, which aims to make UK cancer outcomes among the best in Europe in the next ten years.

Cancer remains the public's number one fear. With a concerted effort from the next Parliament, I am sure we can give hope to the millions of people affected by cancer and their friends and family.

More than one in three people in Putney will develop some form of cancer during their lifetime. My own family - like many - has been touched by cancer. In the last thirty years, the UK's 10-year survival rates have doubled but cancer survival rates still lag behind the best performing countries in Europe such as Sweden, Norway and Finland.

The Cancer Commitment calls on MPs in the next Parliament to take action in five key areas:

· Detecting cancer earlier
· Providing world class treatment
· Preventing more cancers
· Tackling cancer inequalities
· Protecting the UK?s research base

For information on Cancer Research UK?s Commit To Beat Cancer campaign, visit: http://www.committobeatcancer.org/

The change we see

These are some of the hundreds of new and revamped facilities around the country completed by Labour since we were elected. They're from right around the country, but here in Putney we:

• Rebuilt Queen Mary's Hospital in Roehampton
• Upgraded doctors and dentists' surgeries like the one in Augustus Road
• Are currently upgrading the pool at Southfields Community College;
• Built the Brandlehow Nursery extension
• Are about to fund a major refit of Elliott School and the expansion of Hotham Primary School
• Funded the expansion of South Thames College on their central Wandsworth campus
• Expanded Roehampton University

..Among other important local investments in our community. Continuing investment in Putney, Roehampton and Southfields depends on who wins the general election - and that depends on who you vote for locally. The Tories will cut these building schemes substantially. Labour has a track record of delivering for our area.

HPV Clinics open over Christmas

Over the Christmas and new year period Wandsworth NHS is running drop-in clinics for teenage aged 13 to 18 years old to catch up with their HPV jab. This vaccine will protect them against a future risk of cervical cancer, and the clinics will run until 13th January.

I've already made representations to the NHS that they should be providing a clinic in the Putney area - all three are in the south and east of the borough when it would make a lot of sense for Queen Mary's Hospital and Tudor Lodge Centre in Victoria Drive to be bases for these clinics. However, the three bases over the Christmas period will be:

St Christopher?s Clinic, Battersea
Wheeler Court, Plough Road SW11 2AX
TUESDAYS 12noon to 4pm and WEDNESDAYS 9.30am to 12.30pm

Doddington Clinic, Battersea
311 Battersea Park Road Battersea SW11 4LU
MONDAYS 1.30 to 4.30pm and THURSDAYS 1.30 to 4.30pm

Tooting Bec Medical Centre
103 Macmillan Way Tooting SW17 6AT (off Franciscan Road opposite Tooting Bec Common) SATURDAYS 9am to 12pm

If you want to find out more call the Wandsworth immunisation helpline on 020 8254 8393 or email betty.attipoe@wpct.nhs.uk or wpct.imms@nhs.net.

World AIDS Day

World AIDS Day, which is today, always provides an important opportunity for reflection.

As we look back over the last quarter of a century, the speed at which AIDS has spread across the world is astonishing and horrifying. As people of conscience and concern we are called to act; to halt and reverse the spread of HIV and AIDS at home and abroad.

I am proud of Labour?s history of international leadership in on HIV and AIDS. Through our Presidencies of the G8 and EU in 2005, the UK led the way in galvanising international commitment, increasing funding, and achieving better results in the global response to HIV and AIDS.

Since 2004, 20 times more people have access to life-saving treatment. Since 2003 the price of first line AIDS drugs has halved. And there are now more than 4 million people on anti-retroviral treatment, compared to just 100,000 people who received it back in 2001.

This is important progress. However, with more than 33 million people around the world living with HIV and most prevention strategies available to fewer than 1 in 5 people who need them, the scale of the challenge remains vast. Sub-Saharan Africa continues to be the region most affected, where AIDS is its leading cause of death and 14 million children across the region have been orphaned by AIDS.

With Labour, the UK is the second largest contributor to HIV and AIDS globally, having commited £6 billion, to strengthen health systems and services in developing countries, on top of our £1 billion commitment to the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

Labour?s investment will help meet the urgent shortfall of health workers in the worst-hit African countries and will enable developing countries to improve antenatal care to prevent HIV from being passed on to babies in the womb.

The truly terrible spread of AIDS shows just how interconnected our lives are. It has reached every corner of the globe, bringing destruction to lives and communities on all continents. In response to the challenge we can?t walk by on the other side. On World AIDS Day we recommit to ensuring that the goal of universal access to prevention, treatment and care is achieved.

Britain: second in world for innovation and entrepreneurship

Despite the continual talking down of Britain by the Conservatives and Putney Tory MP Justine Greening in particular, a new report by the free-market Legatum Institute finds that, surprise surprise, the UK is remarkably strong and robust.

Overall Britain comes twelth (out of 104) in the rankings which analyse a range of the factors that make countries competitive and successful: that's ahead of Germany, France, Italy and Japan to name but a few; and of our major competitors only just behind the US. And here's what they say about key aspects of our country:

Economic Fundamentals: "British inflation and unemployment rates are better than the global average, indicating a fairly stable economy...Foreign direct investment stands at 7% of GDP, showing the British economy to be an attractive investment opportunity to foreign investors.

So much for Conservative claims that we are, as a nation, over-extended, our (excellent) credit rating at risk and on the brink of being shunned by international investors.

Entrepreneurship and innovation: "Barriers to entry, in terms of number of procedures required to start a business, are very low in the UK. This is reflected in the fourth highest number of new businesses registering in the country in 2007...ICT goods account for a high percentage of total exports, ranking the country 12th, internationally, and 34% of exported manufactured goods are high-tech exports. The country devotes 2.3% of its GDP on R&D expenditure, placing it in the top 10 on both variables. The UK receives the third highest amount of royalties, reflecting successful capitalisation on the country?s intellectual property.

Social capital: "...Instances of charitable giving also ranked second highest, internationally. Over a quarter of respondents had volunteered time to an organisation the previous month, and 59% had helped a stranger, ranking the country in the top 30 on both variables."

Education: "British workers benefit from high levels of tertiary schooling, boosting labour productivity"

Health: "High life expectancy, low infant mortality, and a strong health infrastructure characterise the health care system in the UK"

Personal Freedom: "British society is characterised by a high degree of personal freedom and perceived tolerance of minority groups"

It's incredibly easy to forget in the drip-drip world of sensationalist tabloid news just what a fantastic country the United Kingdom is, especially when we have HM Official Opposition doing everything in their power to destroy our reputation at home and abroad and threatening to take us down an economic path not a single G20 country is heading.

This report hasn't been compiled by Labour, the trade unions or by Government, but by a global investment firm: hardly a firm likely to sugar-coat its findings because it's politically sympathetic to the Labour Party. But don't take my word for it: download the full report here.

Hat-tip to blogger Don Pasinski for drawing this story to wider attention.

Labour: giving you a world class health service

Local NHS shelves plans to redevelop Putney Hospital site

Last night I attended a meeting at which a senior director from Wandsworth Primary Care Trust announced that the board would be asked to shelve plans to redevelop the Putney Hospital site next Wednesday.

Putney Hospital closed in 1999 and, as a result of complex legal issues relating to the development of common land, it has taken the best part of ten years for a development proposal to come to the table.

However, in June this year NHS London effectively vetoed the proposal - which was to relocate some central Putney GP services and the work of the Eileen Lecky clinic onto the hospital site. NHS London acted out of a concern that the proposal did not reflect value for money, was not environmentally sustainable and - critically in my view - was too difficult to get to for many of the patients who would transfer to it.

The main issue here is the need to find new premises for a number of local GP practices where the lead GP is intending to retire soon. The PCT has decided to recommend that new GP services are relocated to other non-NHS-owned properties in Putney. Five commercial sites in central Putney have been identified, although the locations have not been made public while the PCT negotiates with the owners.

I would like to see the detail of the report that is going to the PCT Board next week before making any detailed pronouncements but I believe that the PCT has a moral obligation to residents to deal once and for all with the derelict site on Putney Common which has already absorbed over a million pounds of taxpayers money in planning and costs thousands every year to secure.

Yesterday's meeting - which was attended by around 60 residents - was organised by the Putney Society, of which I am a member. The Putney Society continues to be a welcome and strong voice on this issue and, given that I was a local council I look forward to working alongside them - and others, including my political opponents - to secure an outcome that meets the needs of local patients and residents.

Help me tackle street drinking in Roehampton

As I wrote about a few days ago here, one of the problems with the centre of Roehampton is the street drinkers who hang around throughout the day, outside the library and post office.

Not only are they a problem in themselves; reinforcing stereotypes about Roehampton, urinating beneath peoples? homes and generally causing a nuisance, but they also take up police time which could be better used tackling more serious crime and anti-social behaviour.

Making the Danebury Avenue area an Alcohol Exclusion Zone will give the police new powers to not only move drinkers on but confiscate and dispose of their drinks. It doesn?t prevent local shops selling, or local people buying alcohol at all: it just means people can?t drink it in public within the zone?s boundaries.

My Alcohol Exclusion Zone should be complemented by real help for those with drinking problems, so I?m pleased that local churches and the Salvation Army are working together to see what they can do.

If you support my plan to make Roehampton town centre a nicer place for residents, visitors and shoppers, please sign my online petition. As ever, the more of you who sign up, the stronger our voice will be. Together we can make a difference.

You can sign my online petition here.

Choice in the NHS

You may have seen in yesterday's news that the Labour Government will abolish GP catchment areas within a year - a move that means you will no longer be forced to stay on the books of your local doctor for no other reason that it is the closest to where you live.

Anyone who's had minor - or indeed some major - operations will know that patients are now offered a choice as to the hospital at which they will be treated. This can often include a private hospital which provides free NHS treatment, as well as NHS ones.

As the Putney SW15 website recently reported, 38 of 47 GP practices here in Wandsworth now operate more patient-friendly hours. This extension of GP opening hours along with the abolition of catchment areas for GPs is about giving us all greater choice and a more personalised access to health services when we need them.

Choice shouldn't be an optional extra in a democratic, wealthy country like ours. Choice isn't wasteful: it's essential to improving standards because given genuine choice, consumers: be they customers, students or patients always vote with their feet. Successful providers of good services do well, those that fail do badly. I have great faith in the skill, dedication and excellence of our NHS to be confident that given choice people will choose NHS care. But when choice is absent or removed, you can be left with a public service lottery where the quality, availability and extent of the service you receive can depend on where you happen to live.

One of the legacies of the last Labour decade - and the platform on which we should be setting out our plans for a fourth term - is the extension and embedding of choice right across the public services we use and rely on. Once you have choice it is incredibly difficult for it to be removed.

Conservative: "I wouldn't wish the NHS on anybody"

The story making today's headlines is the one about Tory MP (and multi-millionaire) Alan Duncan complaining that Members of Parliament don't get paid enough.

Alan Duncan's remarks are stupid and offensive, even if they do, according to Conservative blogger Iain Dale represent fairly accurately how Tory MPs feel about having to serve their country.

But far, far more serious in my view are the outrageous comments by Daniel Hannan, a publicity-seeking far-right Conservative Euro-MP who spent yesterday touring America's TV studios trashing our National Health Service.

He said he "wouldn't wish it on anybody". That's a subjective opinion I completely disagree with: our NHS is, in my view, the envy of the world and getting better - but what was unacceptable was the basis on which he justified his opinion. He claimed:

"...you get huge waiting lists; you have bad survival rates; you would much rather fall ill in the US than in the UK. You know if you get cancer, if you get heart disease, you get stroke, five years on the chances are here you are gonna be healthy ; in the UK you are not."

Let's start with waiting lists. 18 months when Mr Hannan's Conservatives were last in power, 18 weeks today - and in Wandsworth more than half seen within 8 weeks. Still too long - but self evidently not a "huge waiting list".

How about mortality rates - especially for cancer? One of the most significant achievements of the NHS in the past ten years has been huge improvements in cancer survival rates. And since April cancer treatments have been free from prescription charges. Here's a list of some of the other successes of Wandsworth NHS this past year alone.

Those might be some of the reasons why satisfaction with the NHS has never been higher. But if not, how about GP surgeries opening when working patients need them to be? Or an end to mixed-sex wards by 2010? Or more doctors, nurses, midwives and dentists than ever before?

Mr Hannan was trashing his own country in the US because he's trying to prevent President Obama from giving everyone in America free healthcare at the point of delivery - exactly what we in Labour did fifty years ago when Aneurin Bevan founded the National Health Service.

Around 54 million Americans are currently without any health insurance; they either have to go without treatment, hand over a credit card and pay a premium before they get treated, or travel miles for what are little better than back-street clinics providing poor-quality care. Meanwhile the big private healthcare companies are driving up insurance prices by inflation-busting amounts, excluding more and more every year. And this in the richest country on earth.

I wouldn't wish THAT on anybody.

And if you think he's being taken out of context, you can read his full comments - and even watch one of his many US interviews, right here.

Wandsworth NHS continues to improve

Whenever I talk about some of the practical improvements Labour in Government is achieving, I always try to relate them to our area, because in many services the sums we are investing are so vast and some of the targets quite opaque that it's hard to relate to them.

But Wandsworth NHS has just sent me an email talking about just five of the local priorities they've been working on, and the results they've achieved. For example:

In the last year, 1,225 people quit smoking using the Wandsworth NHS Stop Smoking Service.

By the end of April Wandsworth NHS had screened 6,750 young people aged 15 to 24 for Chlamydia, which not only helped keep local people free of a sexually-transmitted disease that can lead to infertility, but also helped with other aspects of sex education and birth control.

Here's one that's really important, given the appalling damage the scaremongering and misinformation about the Measles, Mumps and Rubella (MMR) immunisation did a few years ago. 86% of 2 year olds in Wandsworth were immunised against MMR this year, compared to just 60% a year ago.

And just as important, Wandsworth has been immunising local women against the Human Pathloma Virus (HPV) which causes cervical cancer. Last year 747 12 year old girls received all three courses of the HPV vaccine. This year the team are extending the programme to girls in all other secondary school year groups.

An extra 9,000 people attended Accident & Emergency, Tooting Walk-in Centre or the Queen Mary?s Minor Injuries Unit this past year, yet the NHS still met Labour's four hour waiting time target.

44 out of 47 GP practices in Wandsworth open for longer hours to provide more convenient services for patients who struggle to take time off work to attend a surgery.

Wandsworth has had the biggest reduction in cancer mortality in south west London.

St George?s Hospital has massively improved its infection control and met both targets for keeping down cases of MRSA and C.Difficile.

All these things don't just happen by luck or even by judgement. They've been achieved because of the huge investment that Labour has made in the NHS - the same investment that's built 100 new hospitals this past decade; or is eliminating mixed sex wards.

There's so much more to do to improve services provided by our NHS and to improve life expectancy and fight debilitating and fatal diseases. I'm never going to seek your vote solely on the basis of what Labour has achieved. But I am going to ask you to accept that the extra NHS investment we've provided - and which the country voted for us to deliver - has made a difference; it's not been wasted. And on that basis I ask you to consider who will best protect that investment and go on improving our National Health Service.

A new website for new families

Wandsworth NHS has set up a website to help new families get as much information on services available and offer help, support and advice. It's called http://www.wandsworthlittlefeet.nhs.uk/.

Often, government-run websites aren't exactly easy to use and look terrible. But this one is pretty well designed and easy to navigate. if you are pregnant, have given birth, or even if you are just thinking about having a baby, this site could be of use.

An end to mixed sex accommodation in hospitals

Labour Health Secretary Alan Johnson MP last week announced the final phase of funding to make sure that virtually all hospital accommodation for patients will become single-sex by the end of 2009.

This is one of those issues that people understandably feel very strongly about: it's about feeling safe, respecting each others' privacy and dignity - and let's face it: it's something we should be able to expect in any 21st century health service.

So I'm delighted at the announcement of £100million to complete the work we've been doing on this since Labour was first elected. Here's a Q&A about the changes:

Why do I say "virtually all" and not "all" accommodation will be single-sex?

Mixed sex accommodation can never be fully eliminated; there will always be some emergency cases where fast, effective treatment will take priority over ensuring separate accommodation. But it must be reduced to an absolute minimum. Examples might be:

• A patient needing very high-tech care, with one-to-one nursing, such as Intensive Care Units
• A patient needing very specialised care, where one nurse might be caring for a small number of patients; or
• A patient needing very urgent care (e.g. rapid admission following heart attack) when a bed - any bed - has to be found and one in a single sex area may not be available.

Where mixing does occur, it must be justifiable for all the patients affected. When a patient is no longer in a condition that clinically justifies mixing we would expect segregation.

What type of changes are being implemented by the trusts?

A large majority of the works funded are capital improvements such as adding new bathroom and toilet facilities, screening and new buildings.


Is the funding provided sufficient for Strategic Health Authorities to carry out the improvement works that needs to be made, what if costs overrun?

Each SHA has submitted costed plans that in some cases exceed their allocation from the £100m.

Funds have been agreed on the basis that improvements will be achieved by the end of June. There may be some minor overrun in a small number of exceptional cases, but all Strategic Health Authorities have confirmed that they expect their trusts to be able to deliver their plans on time. Strategic Health Authorities are monitoring progress fortnightly to ensure they stay on track.

When will the proposed changes to Mixed Sex Accommodation be completed?

The vast majority of developments carried out as a result of the £100m challenge fund will be implemented by the end of June 2009. However some trusts have long term plans in place which the funding will assist them with, so in some cases action will continue beyond this date. We want to be sure that improvements are well-established and sustainable in the long term.

What happens if the trusts do not meet the deadline of their own proposals?

Tough financial penalties will be imposed from 2010/2011 to the trusts that do continue to treat patients in mixed sex accommodation - unless it can be clinically justified.

What do we mean by single sex accommodation?

Single-sex accommodation can be provided in:

• Single-sex wards (i.e. the whole ward is occupied by men or women but not both)
• Single rooms with adjacent single-sex toilet and washing facilities (preferably en-suite)
• Single-sex accommodation within mixed wards (i.e. bays or rooms which accommodate either men or women, not both; with designated single-sex toilet and washing facilities preferably within or adjacent to the bay or room).

In addition, patients should not need to pass through opposite sex accommodation or toilet and washing facilitates to access their own.

Haven't the Conservatives come up with a better plan?

The Conservatives have announced a policy of giving every NHS patient the opportunity to choose a single room when booking an operation in hospital. But they estimated that this would cost £1.57 billion - and that was before the economic downturn. Unfortunately, they got this figure completely wrong ? in fact, it would cost £9.51 billion.

They got their figures wrong because they based their figures on just 80 existing conversions, where the work had been the easiest to carry out. All of them were in NHS Trusts which already had space suitable for conversion, and all are small in relation to each trust's total number of beds.

They also failed to take into account the need to find extra space while the work on the old mixed sex wards is being undertaken.

And the Tories ignored the land costs of increasing NHS single room capacity. Some hospitals would be able to build additional capacity on existing sites but others, particularly in London, would incur significant extra capital costs. And this extra cost is not part of the £9.51bn costing - so the true cost of the Tory plans will be substantially higher.

School nurses need homes

Since she has become her party's spokesman for Communities, Putney's Conservative MP has noticed that there is a shortage of school nurses in London.

I'm delighted that like me she is calling for more school nurses. However calling for them alone won't make them happen. Nor, as she seems to believe, will simply throwing money at the problem - Labour has doubled spending on the NHS since 1997. And I must ask where Miss Greening believes her party will find this extra money she's calling for given their very clear position that government should be cutting spending, not increasing it.

The problem, as the NHS locally admits, is the lack of affordable homes for school nurses and other key medical staff in our borough. It's why I'm opposing the NHS sell-off of Arton Wilson House in Roehampton Lane: purpose-built homes for nurses which the Conservative Council is waiting to rubber-stamp for yet more luxury penthouses.

If Justine Greening is serious in her claims to be concerned about the lack of school nurses - and I hope she is - I invite her to join me in trying to persuade Wandsworth NHS to reverse their sell-off plans for Arton Wilson House. But more substantively, she needs to start standing up to her Conservative councillors on Wandsworth Council and insist on far more keyworker homes in any new plans for Putney, such as Tileman House and Putney Place.

The difficulty for Miss Greening is this a problem caused by Conservative politicians implementing Conservative policies. More of the same simply won't do.

David Cameron's "Age of Austerity"

Why we're Labour

Labour MP Nick Palmer represents Broxtowe in Nottinghamshire, and today wrote an article for the Political Betting website explaining why he - and so many others around the country - remain passionate about getting Labour re-elected at the next General Election.

Although I don't agree with every single point he makes below, I thought this was an excellent piece and so I'm reproducing it. If you're a Labour supporter I hope it inspires you; and if you're not, well, I hope the way he sets out the case gives you some pause for thought:


What do we expect of governments? We expect that they give us protection at time of crisis (military, economic or social) and pursue a coherent long-term agenda to make the country better.

First, then, is the Government offering protection at time of crisis? We certainly have an economic crisis on our hands, and I?d contend that it?s being dealt with more competently and with more attention to protection of the vulnerable than people originally expected when it first blew up.

We?ve seen predictions here that companies would fall like ninepins, unemployment would head straight for four million, the FTSE would plunge to 2500, the recession would last for years, mass repossessions would devastate the housing market, full recovery could take a generation. All those predictions are starting to look exaggerated.

Can we be sure? No. But it?s noticeable that the main Conservative critique has not been ?Why are you doing X and not Y?? but ?You shouldn?t have got us here in the first place?. And as for that, I wouldn?t try to maintain the claim that we?re uniquely well-placed to withstand the crisis, but it?s also obviously not true that it?s peculiar to us. Internationally, we?re all very much in the same boat.

That brings us to the second aspect: internationalism. Labour has usually been an internationalist party (with atavistic exceptions such as our anti-EEC stance in 1983, which I supported at the time and was wrong to support), and it comes naturally to a Labour government to seek international agreements without obsessing about national sovereignty: global problems need global solutions.

Gordon Brown has surprised his critics on this: after an apparently frustrating series of visits to the US, the EU and developing countries, he was able to get the G20 agreement which even the harshest critics struggled to call a flop. We are actively keen on international financial regulation, to an extent that makes the nationalist and City-linked wings of the Tories queasy. A Brown-led Labour government is clearly going to pursue this agenda, making life harder for tax havens (which many Tories half-think should be left alone as healthy competition) and limiting the wild speculation which triggered the current crisis. If we had an inward-looking government, preoccupied with tinkering with the domestic levers and arguing peevishly with the EU, we would be part of the global problem and not the solution.

Third, we are midway through five projects that are central to most Labour supporters? hearts:

? reducing both absolute and relative child poverty
? increasing overseas aid to the UN target of 0.7% of GDP
? tackling climate change seriously
? making the education system competitive with the private sector
? making the NHS genuinely comparable to best European practice

All have made considerable headway under this government. The Child Poverty Action Group acknowledges the rapid progress until the current crisis on poverty; third world charities are enthusiastic about the progress on overseas aid (including the quiet delinking from trade conditions like the Pergau-arms linkage that disgraced the Tory government), we are the first country in the world to impose binding carbon reduction targets on ourselves, and although there?s no shortage of Daily Mail readers who?ll claim that we have a Third World school and hospital system, you won?t find many head teachers or consultants who don?t acknowledge the progress. There?s a reasonable argument about whether the extra money could have been used even more effectively, but there isn?t one state school or medical facility in my area which hasn?t improved very noticeably.

Would a Tory government abandon all these efforts? No ? they?re obviously desirable (pace the fringe of climate change sceptics), and any conceivable government would think them a jolly good thing to pursue. But they are Labour priorities and they don?t seem to be the Tory priorities. Mr Cameron hastens to reassure us that he?d work towards the aid target, that he wants the best for the NHS (albeit without specific targets), and so on, but what was it that really got the Conservative backbenches restless? The suggestion by Ken Clarke that reducing inheritance tax for estates worth £2 million might not be a top priority.

I want a government that sees the five objectives above as the central long-term priorities, not a government harried by its backbenchers into being preoccupied with reducing Inheritance Tax, reshaping the group within which Conservative Euro-MPs affiliate at Stasbourg and other things that seem to me at best peripheral and at worst undesirable. It may well be that the Tories will in due course unveil a more compelling agenda, and I absolutely accept that there are plenty of decent Tories who want the best for Britain. As a party, though, they are so far relying very heavily on the ?time for change? argument, and if Mr Cameron has any particular priorities of his own, he?s kept them under wraps so far.

But what about freedom ? the libertarian-Conservative/David Davis agenda? Well, leaving aside the puzzling worry about CCTV (if I go into a public place I may be observed by real humans, never mind just cameras), I do think that all governments tend to lean on the side of authority, and it?s an ever-present danger that needs to be watched whoever is in power.

But the strongest defence against an encroaching state is legally-entrenched powers for the individual, and Labour has introduced two of them, the Freedom of Information Act and the Human Rights Act. Both have repeatedly been a nuisance to ministers, but despite wriggling on specific issues, there?s been no move to water down either of them. What would the freedom-loving Conservatives do with the Human Rights Act? Abolish it, and replace it by a British Rights Act which would say?er?what? We don?t know, as it?s seemingly not a priority for them to tell us.

Finally, what about specific things that go wrong? The McBride/Draper disgrace, the various resigning Ministers over the years, the slowness to tighten MPs? allowances? Sure. I?m not arguing that the Government is perfect. But party loyalty comes down to a shared sense of priorities.

I want a government that is internationalist, handles the current crisis competently, and sets poverty (at home and abroad) and public services as its priorities. I?m horrified when a Labour MP or party official does something disgraceful, but at root I think the party is the same noble cause that I joined 38 years ago. I?m proud to be part of it, and I?ll work to get it re-elected with the same energy and enthusiasm that I had in 1997.

Dr Nick Palmer MP

Local NHS public meeting

Free cancer prescriptions from today

As well as the introduction of free swimming for over-60s and under-16s which begins today, I want to flag up three extra Labour health initiatives that take effect today too.

The abolition of prescription charges for cancer patients

...available to anyone who is undergoing treatment for cancer, the effects of cancer, or the effects of cancer treatment. This should benefit up to 150,000 patients already diagnosed with cancer.

Free NHS Health Checks for everyone in England aged between 40-74

This is part of a national programme to identify people?s risk to heart disease, stroke, kidney disease and diabetes. The preventative checks programme will be fully implemented by 2012/13. It is up to local NHS trusts like Wandsworth's to decide how the checks will be delivered; but they're likely to include GP surgeries, health centres and pharmacies so that as many people benefit as possible.

All NHS trusts offer MRSA screening

This will allow the NHS to reduce the chances of patients getting an MRSA infection, or passing MRSA onto another patient.

Today is April Fools Day, but just as swimming is now free for under 16s and over 60s, these are three practical measures that are no joke: they'll make a real difference to hundreds of thousands of people the length and breadth of the country.

Why people aren't worried about the NHS anymore

Today's Daily Telegraph leads with the fact that half of women breast cancer sufferers in England survive the disease. 60,000 women, and 40,000 men diagnosed with colorectal cancer every single year now beat the disease and go on to have the same life expectancy as someone who has escaped the disease.

Opinion polls nowadays show that the NHS doesn't rank very highly when people are asked about issues that concern them - and the reason for that is not because the NHS has stopped being close to our national heart. It is because a decade of Labour investment in health has stopped the rot of decaying hospitals, pensioners dying on trolleys in halls, outrageously long waits for treatment and chronic shortages of doctors and nurses; and is now making a real difference on major health threats like cancer.

Of course there's a lot that isn't right in the NHS: the shocking news about neglect in Stafford Hospital is one recent example, and there will always be individuals who get failed by the health service.

But these new cancer figures are really significant - as is the fact that it is the Telegraph; hardly a paper sympathetic to Labour, that has announced them. And as the Telegraph report goes on to say, the real cause for optimism is that there is so much scope for doing even better in years to come, because we still don't have the survival rates of some of our European neighbours.

The NHS is safe in Labour's hands - and the fact that people have stopped worrying about it is a measure of how significant a difference Labour in Government has made to health in England.

Tough questions David Cameron needs to answer #3

Tough questions David Cameron needs to answer #1

Satisfaction in NHS highest in 25 years

More people than at any time in the past 25 years are satisfied with the NHS, and those who have had direct personal experience of the health service are the most satisfied.

That's the finding of the annual British Social Attitudes survey that was published last week. In 1997, the last survey under the Conservatives, just 35% were very or quite satisfied with our NHS. That figure is now 51%. 69% of people who have experienced in-patient care said they were satisfied with it. 60% were satisfied with out-patient services. 76% are satisfied with their GP service.

And this might be an explanation for the growing confidence in our NHS:

Wandsworth NHS leads country on accessible GPs

Earlier this month the Government announced that 69% of GP practices in England and Wales now offer "out of hours" services to their patients. But in Wandsworth, that percentage is 75%: 36 of our 48 GPs provide extended opening hours, making it easier for you to see the Doctor after work or at the weekend.

This is great news and even more calls into question the Conservatives' extraordinary position of opposing this service along with polyclinics. Putney's Conservative MP is desperately trying to hide the fact that her opposition to improved GP services is completely at odds with the clearly expressed wishes of the public in the NHS survey. Meanwhile, with Labour NHS services keep getting better.

A sign of the importance local people place on continually improving services was seen on Thursday evening when the Putney Society held an update meeting on local plans for a West Wandsworth polyclinic (serving Putney & Roehampton), at which local GPs ands NHS managers briefed residents on the polyclinic plans and what they would mean locally.

Over 60 members of the public turned up at St Mary's Church to listen, and I took the chance of being there for most of the presentations before being having to leave to speak at another local meeting nearby.

Miss Greening is on the wrong side of this issue. People very strongly want the sort of change Labour is delivering, and while of course there is concern about changing the way health provision is delivered, better quality, quicker and more comprehensive general medical services will, I believe, trump those apprehensions.

Putney Society NHS meeting

The Putney Society is hosting a meeting open to all on local health service provision on Thursday 22 January from 7.30pm at St Mary's Church, Putney Bridge.

Our NHS has improved massively over the last decade or so: a brand new Queen Mary's Hospital, waiting times cut hugely, more doctors, dentists, nurses and midwives employed. More change is on the way with work underway on replacing Putney Hospital and changes to GP services which will lead to much more convenient surgery hours and one-stop healthcare. You can find out more about all the plans, question the experts and have your say on 22 January.

Speakers:

- Dr Sian Job, Chair of Wandsworth Local Medical Committee
- Dr Peter Ilves, Senior Partner at Danebury Surgery, Roehampton
- Nicola Theron, SW Health Partnerships [Putney Hospital site]

Measles, Mumps and Rubella

This week Wandsworth NHS is launching campaign across Wandsworth to encourage parents of babies and toddlers to take up the Measles, Mumps & Rubella (MMR) vaccination.

Parents are being urged to make sure their children have received the two doses of MMR vaccine. The number of measles cases this year has risen right across the country. To date there have been 31 confirmed cases of measles in Wandsworth this year, compared to just 11 cases in the whole of 2007.

The campaign includes advertising in parenting magazines Flapjack, Angels & Urchins and Parents News, news stories and features in local newspapers, parenting magazines and on online parenting websites such as Netmums. Packs of posters and flyers have also gone out to all GP practices and clinics across the borough as well as libraries, leisure centres, nurseries, schools and baby and toddler groups. The campaign also includes a roadshow of events at ?baby rhyme times? at local libraries led by the immunisation nurses.

If you want to find out more about the MMR or other childhood immunisations then there is a dedicated immunisation team locally. They have set up an immunisation hotline for Wandsworth on 020 8254 8393. For more information about any childhood jabs visit www.immunisation.nhs.uk

For more information on the campaign or to order more materials please call Maria Vidal on 020 8812 7609 or email maria.vidal@wpct.nhs.uk

Conservative cant over Queen Mary's

When it comes to Queen Mary's Hospital, Putney's Conservative MP has some nerve.

She's been in the local press this week attacking the hospital for its record-keeping, which the hospital itself denies is harming service.

Given that the last Conservative Government all but closed Queen Mary's, axing its Accident & Emergency Department in the process, I find it hard to take any expression of concern about the hospital from her at all seriously.

Justine Greening has voted the way her party told her to 96.4% of the time since she was elected in 2005 - sycophantic even by Tory standards. So it's safe to assume that she would have been a cheerleader for her party's closure of Queen Mary's Hospital back in 1997 and would have voted against the increased Labour investment in the NHS that funded the rebuilding of it had she been in parliament at the time.

So forgive me for being contemptuous of her pathetic criticisms of the hospital, on the basis that the hospital is disadvantaging patients.

The Tory closure of Queen Mary's A&E disadvantaged patients.

All-but closing the hospital down entirely disadvantaged patients.

In comparison, complaining about the storage of patient records at nearby Barnes Hospital while the system for storing them electronically at Queen Mary's is being set up is a pathetic, trifling criticism aimed - just as her turning up to the opening of the rebuilt hospital in 2005 was - to get herself a cheap headline.

The real newsworthy story, which would be a first for her, would be to apologise for the appalling damage her party did to Queen Mary's last time it was in power. If she can't quite manage that, the least she could do is stop criticising the hospital - especially on such spurious grounds.

Local dentists

Click on image if you need a larger version.

Patients' No.1 priority: better access to GPs

Earlier this Summer I launched a survey seeking your views on the NHS at 60 and received lots of really useful replies. Now. the Conservatives are doing the same.

I'm all for that, except that the Tory survey isn't genuinely seeking views on improving the NHS but rather trying to steer people towards opposing more convenient GP opening hours, which the Conservatives are against.

The Conservatives (and, unfortunately, the British Medical Association), are guilty of a great deal of misinformation about extended GP opening hours and Labour's polyclinics plan, which was drawn up by one of the most experienced surgeons in the NHS, Dr Ara Darzi. So here's a short Q & A on Labour's plans for a better NHS in London.

Why is GP extended opening a priority for the Government?

The first national GP patient survey last year showed that there are around six and a half million patients who are unhappy with their GP practice's opening hours. The latest national GP patient survey showed even more patients unhappy with their practices opening times.

These patients would find it easier to access services if they could make appointments at the weekend, in the evening or early in the morning. The survey found this to be particularly true for young working men.

Our overriding objective is to deliver the best possible service to patients. People want health that is more personalised and convenient, so primary care services need to adapt to respond to this need.

Evening and weekend opening is unnecessary and expensive.

No it isn't. Extended opening hours are being paid for by re-using existing payments for GP practices, not from new investment. Labour is responding to what patients have asked for. We have heard what patients said and are doing something about it.

Some patients - the elderly and families - will miss out on daytime surgeries.

The BMA's claim that patients who want to see their GP during the day will miss out is simply wrong. This is about extending GPs' opening hours, not substituting evening or weekend opening for daytime appointments. More capacity, more accessibility, more responsive and convenient services.

How will this affect me?

Wandsworth NHS will agree with GP practices locally the precise arrangements, but we expect to see at least half of GP practices offer extended opening hours this year, with an average of three extra hours per practice. Each practice's opening hours will be based on its patients' views on whether it is more important for them to have more evening or weekend surgeries.

What if a GP practice refuses to extend its hours?

Labour has already announced investment of £250 million in over 150 new health centres across the country that will offer all patients (regardless of where they are registered) access to GP services 8am to 8pm, seven days a week. All patients will also continue to have access to out-of-hours GP services for urgent care.

The £250 million means more GPs, nurses and other healthcare professionals, more appointments, and longer and more convenient opening hours. This is about investing more in primary care, which is vital if we are to meet the public health challenges before us and improving the quality and accessibility of services for the people who pay for them

What is a GP Led Health Centre?

The basic guiding principle behind GP led health centres is to provide extra access to GP services. The Labour Government has set a small number of core criteria that we expect Wandsworth NHS to include in these services to ensure some uniformity across the country:

• easily accessible locations;
• open 8am-8pm, 7 days a week;
• provide access to bookable GP appointments and walk-in services; and
• open to any member of the public

These GP led health centres will consist of approximately 5 GPs as opposed to the 25 as has been claimed. Many local NHS Trusts are looking to provide other services in these health centres, such as diagnostics or pharmacy services.

What is a Polyclinic?

The NHS in London has developed its own proposals to address deep-rooted challenges of public health and primary care. This includes proposals for 'polyclinic' service models that bring together a range of primary care services, specialist services, urgent care services and social care in one place, or a cluster of convenient nearby surgeries.

What's Labour's record on the NHS?

We have put substantial additional investment into general practice. Funding for GP services has more than doubled since we were elected: from £3bn in 1997 to £7.86bn in 2007.

There has been an increase in the number of GPs from 28,046 in 1997 to 33,364 in 2007. In addition, more GPs are choosing to continue working after retirement age.

Since 1997, the average number of hours worked by GPs has reduced by 17% while the average GP has seen a significant increase in pay (22% between 2002/03 and 2005/06)

And we are responding to patients' number 1 demand to visit their GP at more convenient times

18 months to 18 weeks

Where has all the money that Labour has poured into the NHS gone?

Well, one of the things it has done is turn the average 18 month waiting list for treatment on the National Health Service that Labour inherited from the Conservatives into one of just 18 weeks. Just think about that difference:

18 months under the Tories
18 weeks with Labour

And remember that's the average. In Wandsworth's Primary Care Trust (PCT), newly released figures show that over half - 536 of 1,030 - needing treatment were seen within EIGHT weeks.

You can download an excel table that shows, department-by-department, the treatment times for Wandsworth here.

Wandsworth's Health Service in good health

The Healthcare Commission has just released its performance figures for all NHS Trusts in England and Wales. And Wandsworth's Primary Care Trust has, for the second year in a row, improved a category: it's now rated "good" at its use of resources. In 2006/7 it was in the lowest category possible; last year it was "fair"; now we're in the top half of the table for the first time.



However, there are still ways Wandsworth PCT can do better. While it's clearly getting to grips with its financial controls - wasting less, targeting resources better, investing in the right services; it is still in the bottom half of the table in terms of "quality of service" - the aspect of their service we experience and the more important measure.

In particular, the Trust still has not got to grips with infection control: preventing the spread of superbugs and other germs and diseases; it is not achieving targets for all A&E patients being seen within four hours; and its booking service failed the test too.

But the Trust scored a full-house in terms of "patient focus" - treating patients with dignity and respect, food quality, responding to complaints and the like; "governance" and "cost effectiveness".

Managers will argue that quality of service will follow once resources are properly targeted, and I hope they're right. With the amount of our money Labour has invested in the NHS, I want to see Wandsworth with "excellent" services - in both quality and use of resources.

Download the full Healthcare Commission report for Wandsworth PCT here.

NHS at 60 survey goes live

I have today added a survey seeking your views on the local NHS as it turns 60.

You can take the survey here.

I want to know what your top healthcare priorities are, your experience of the local health service and your views on some of the debates currently raging in this critical policy area.

Sixty years ago this month, Labour Health Secretary Aneurin Bevan launched the National Health Service. I am not alone in believing it to be Labour's single greatest achievement ever.

And since 1997, Putney has seen the fruits of Labour investment in our NHS:

* Rebuilding Queen Mary's Hospital after the last Conservative Government axed its A&E Department in 1997

* Providing the funds to get Putney Hospital back into use as a healthcare provider - and with legal problems now on their way to being resolved work will hopefully start soon

* A new NHS clinic serving Southfields and West Hill

* Many, many more NHS doctors, nurses, consultants, midwives and dentists

* Waiting times for operations slashed

* More convenient GP surgery opening times

...to list just a few. The NHS will always be a huge challenge for government as it struggles to respond to changing health issues and patient needs; new, better treatments; the breadth of service it should provide and the types of facilities best suited to provide those treatments. But the NHS motto: healthcare for all regardless of income, free at the point of use is a beacon for the world and we should all remain very, very proud of our National Health Service

Summer's Putney Paper: out now

The latest edition of The Putney Paperhas begun hitting the streets. This edition sets out my concerns about the threat to the character of our community from plans to build high rise tower blocks all around the constituency.

I also continue exposing the Conservatives' neglect of Putney's roads and there's a major feature on tackling dangerous dogs.

I think Conservative plans to introduce a Dog Tax: a £500 license for any dog their bureaucrats consider "menacing" is just milking public fear over dangerous dogs to fleece responsible dog owners. Instead, I set out how I think the minority of irresponsible dog owners should be tackled and seek your views.

Plus, next month the NHS is 60 years old. Launched by Labour Health Secretary Aneurin Bevan in 1948 we celebrate one of Britain's greatest institutions.

There's also the usual news roundup from across the constituency, more on our Safer Neighbourhood Police teams' successes and su doku makes a comeback!

Fair and balanced?

A few days ago, I reported the public survey that ranked St George's Hospital in Tooting - along with Charing Cross in Fulham our nearest General Hospital as one of the best in London.

A couple of days later the Wandsworth Guardian ran the same story on their front page, except they chose to headline the bad news from that same survey. You had to wade through three columns of negative opinions before the Guardian reported the fact that St George's finished seventh overall out of 25 London hospitals - a pretty good showing.

St George's gets a lot of bad press - some of it deserved - but when it does well, I think there is a duty on a local paper to report the good as well as the not so good. No one disputes that there are still issues to be addressed at St George's - least of all the hospital itself. The concerns of patients identified in the survey deserve serious action by the Hospital.

What do you think? If you wish to share your experience of St Georges - or any other local hospital - get in touch. Whether positive or not, I'd like to hear your views.

St George's NHS Trust gets patients' votes

If you caught BBC London News tonight, you'll have seen a feature about London's worst performing hospitals. Rather than using some obscure performance indicators, this latest survey actually asked people "overall, how do you rate the standard of care you received".

For a hospital trust that tends to get slammed pretty regularly by the media, patients take a surprisingly different view about St George's. In this survey, the St George's NHS Trust came 7th best, out of 25.

St George's Hospital was part of the ward I represented on Wandsworth Council for eight years and I know how fondly it is regarded by local people in Tooting and beyond. The St George's NHS Trust actually includes more than just St George's itself - it also includes Bolingbroke Hospital in Battersea and the Wolfson Rehabilitation Centre in Wimbledon, but the vast majority of patients treated in this Trust use St George's.

One of the things that was clear in the BBC report was that the way the experts - including the hospitals themselves - and patients measure the standard of care provided are worryingly different. I'm pleased that patients are, generally, happy with the care they received at St George's though of course the message is that there is still a lot more that can be improved.

Time to reclassify Cannabis

I very much welcome the Home Secretary's decision to reclassify Cannabis as a more harmful drug.

Since Cannabis was "downgraded" in classification in January 2004 even the most liberal newspaper on the market - The Independent - which led the campaign to decriminalise this drug, has changed its position.

It's important to recognise that there are many different types of Cannabis - it's not a single homogenous drug. Nor are its effects uniform on its takers.

But it is not a harmless drug: it can cause depression, exacerbate schizophrenic tendencies and cause exactly the same long-term damage that smoking cigarettes does: lung cancer, bronchitis and other respiratory harm - in fact cannabis contains MORE tar than cigarettes. In addition, heavy cannabis use results in nerve damage and impairs learning.

Some strains of the drug, notably one known as skunk, are far more powerful and have the same addictive qualities as many more "hard" drugs like heroin. So let no-one tell you that cannabis is harmless or that we should tolerate our kids smoking it in order to discourage them from experimenting with harder drugs.

I believe there is a strong case for cannabis to be made available as a therapeutic drug under doctors' prescription to assist those suffering major pain. And of course we need to put in place even better support for cannabis, and other drug, addicts. But those are both issues removed from whether this should be something the police in reality ignore or which they intervene to deter.

I believe the original decision to reclassify cannabis from class B to C was wrong; I'm delighted that decision is to be reversed and hope it will form part of a wider package of measures to tackle drug misuse and addiction in our society.

Embryology Bill

Given its controversial nature, I'm surprised there hasn't been more media coverage of the Human Tissues and Embryology Bill currently going through Parliament.

The Bill will deliver a major overhaul of the law on a range of measures related to embryo research - in essence what the government is trying to do is tie together years of different and sometimes disparate acts of law into one comprehensive piece of legislation. The Bill covers issues as diverse as Embryonic Stem Cell research, cloning, artificial insemination and much more. It is highly likely that during the debate MPs will revisit the issue of abortion limits.

On their own, several of these issues raise complex ethical questions - and you will perhaps forgive me if I don't claim to have reached a settled conclusion on all of them. But together, they represent a moral and ethical dilemma.

Usually on such matters, the political parties recognise that these are matters of conscience for MPs and allow a "free vote" - that is, they don't whip their MPs to vote a particular way. That has still enabled legislation to pass, as a cross-party majority has usually existed to get the bills through. But it allows those with genuine moral, religious and ethical problems to oppose bills that conflict with their own sincere convictions.

The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats are giving their MPs a free vote on this Bill. My party, Labour, is not. That's wrong and I hope the Government will see sense and allow MPs to reach their own conclusions on the ethics of these proposals. As MP for Putney, I would find it extremely difficult to support the Bill.

Tudor Lodge Clinic: responding to patient need

There was a really good report in the Evening Standard yesterday about how the Tudor Lodge Clinic in Victoria Drive is responding to their patients' needs by staying open beyond office hours.

The practice, which serves 6,000 patients in the West Hill area, opens between 8am and 6pm, as well as Saturday mornings. It is soon to extend weekday hours to 7.30pm. As the Clinic Manager Prath Thurairatnam commented: "We open later because it's about patients, not money".

This comment, for me, sums up why the Doctors' Union is pushing an argument they just can't win in opposing the government's plans to be more responsive to patients' needs.

GPs have received a huge pay increase and had the burden of required out-of-hours service lifted from them over the past few years - they deserve it and it was long overdue. But as someone in the area I was talking to the other day said: "illness doesn't keep office hours, and neither should doctors."

For any of us who leave for work before 8am and who don't get home til after 6pm, traditional opening hours simply aren't any use. It's no longer acceptable for doctors to essentially demand of us that we either take half a day of leave to get to see them, or just let our illness or ailment go untreated.

That's why I commend Prath and his team at Tudor Lodge for the excellent service they provide - and I suspect it's one reason why their patient satisfaction score is as high as 98%.

You can read the Evening Standard article here.

Putney excluded from Chlamydia screening?

I welcome the drive by Wandsworth Primary Care Trust - the major NHS provider in our area, to offer free Chlamydia screening to 15-24s across the borough. But while GPs and pharmacies will be offering the tests, there is not a lead testing centre in the Putney area - they are all in Tooting and Battersea.

I've written to the PCT asking why Putney isn't getting the same priority as Battersea, Balham and Tooting - after all, while Queen Mary's isn't a full general hospital it could certainly be used as a centre for this screening drive - especially as the area surrounding Queen Mary's has the highest proportion of young people in the constituency.

Chlamydia is a common, curable, sexually transmitted infection caused by bacteria that often has no visible symptoms. If left untreated the infection can lead to serious health complications in men and women, not least infertility. Anyone who has unprotected sex could have the infection and not even realise it, so it's worth taking advantage of this free service.

To find out how to get a free Chlamydia test please contact the Chlamydia Screening Helpline on 0845 155 0042.

More NHS cash - and going where it matters

Wandsworth is getting a significantly above inflation increase in its health budget next year; with the extra money being targeted at the public's priorities: cleaner hospitals and extending GP practice opening hours among them.

An extra £23 million is being pumped into Wandsworth - that's a 5% rise. As a result, by the end of the year no-one in Wandsworth should have to wait more than four months from referral to the start of treatment. If that figure doesn't sound especially radical to you, it's worth remembering what things were like just five years ago.

Then, 1,126 people were wating more than six months for an operation - today no-one waits that long. And 2,328 were waiting more than thirteen weeks - that had been reduced to just 434 by May of this year. Under the Conservatives, far more patients were waiting even longer.

Since 1997 when Labour was elected, London now has:

• More than 15,000 extra nurses
• 500 more dentists
• 500 more GPs
• Almost 3,000 more Hospital Consultants
• 1,000 more Midwives
• And more than 3,500 extra doctors in training

And locally Queen Mary's Hospital in Roehampton has been rebuilt and re-opened; Putney Hospital on Putney Common is on the verge of its very own rehabilitation and a new medical centre for the Southfields area opened a few years ago, to name just the three biggest NHS improvements locally.

But don't take my word for it - here's what local GP Dr Tom Coffey says: "I am impressed that the government is putting its money where its mouth is and providing us with the investment we need."

Click here to read more

Feet for purpose

One of the issues I was briefed on during my recent visit to Queen Mary's Hospital in Roehampton was the Pediatry service Wandsworth Primary Care Trust (PCT) offers to older and disabled residents.

Being able to cut our own toe nails is something most of us take for granted: it's such a straightforward, simple duty we take care of almost without thought. But just imagine what it must be like if you are physically no longer able to. So here in Wandsworth a chiropody and toe nail cutting service is provided - and importantly it's what's called "self-referring": anyone who needs the service just gets in touch themselves: they don't need to be referred by a GP.

Chiropody is a service that is affected by the postcode lottery: there are wide variations in the range and quality of services primary care trusts provide around the country. In Wandsworth, our PCT is committed to implementing the Pediatry proposals set out by Age Concern - you can read more about them here - to standardise services and make sure those who need them can get them within the same shorter waiting times that we're now achieving across huge areas of NHS provision.

Queen Mary's Hospital

Earlier this week I paid a visit to Queen Mary?s Hospital in Roehampton.

Going to a hospital isn?t something that many people would normally choose to do but if you have had reason to visit QMH ? either as a patient or visitor - you cannot have failed to have been impressed by this fantastic state of the art local hospital. I was given a guided tour by Stuart Reeves, Associate Director for Adult Services at the hospital, and saw all aspects of the hospital.

I spent some time talking to an elderly in patient on Mary Seacole ward who was recovering from a fall at home. She was full of praise for the staff and the service she has received and it was with real pride that I explained to her how the hospital, which had been all-but closed by the last Conservative Government, had been rebuilt as a result of the record investment in the NHS under the Labour Government.

During my visit I spent some time meeting with Di Caulfeild-Stoker who is the Director of Provider Services. We talked about the health problems facing the area and the way in which she and her colleagues are trying to address them. We spent some considerable amount of time talking about how best we can tackle the obesity problem. I think school nurses have a vitally important part to play in this (pardon the pun) growing problem, but there is a real problem recruiting them due in part to the lack of affordable housing for key workers.

Also as part of my visit I met and spoke with a local GP who was gave me an insight into the primary care issues facing him and other GPs operating in Putney. I was invited to come back again soon to see in further detail the vital work undertaken by our NHS and I very much look forward to my next visit.

Roehampton students' blood donors campaign

Students at Roehampton University have been campaigning in recent weeks for the antiquated and discriminatory ban on gay men being blood donors to be scrapped - a campaign I support.

This is a crazy ban that shouldn't have survived the dawn of the millennium. The NHS blood banks are hardly overwhelmed with donors; and from time to time, especially during the Winter, there are often reports that stocks are perilously low.

The National Blood Service argues that even with screening there is a small risk that infection may get through. But it is unjust and silly to assume that all homosexual blood will be infected while all heterosexual blood is safe; especially given that HIV infection (to name but one) is now proportionally higher in the heterosexual than the gay community.

All I know is that if a relative or friend of mine needed a blood transfusion, the only thing I'd care about was that the blood was safe. Whether it was donated by a man or woman, black or white, gay or straight is utterly immaterial. How the National Blood Service can believe different in this day and age is extraordinary.