Lucy Rigby

By Lucy Rigby lucyrigby

During the recent by-election in Newark, a seat which the Tories were very anxious to retain, Chancellor George Osborne said he wanted to see the Nottingham to Newark rail line “transformed”, with “double the number of trains and at least one non-stop train an hour to Nottingham.” Not only that, the Chancellor also said that these improved services were part of his “long-term economic plan to deliver a better deal for Newark and Britain.”

As services between Lincoln and Nottingham, as well as Newark, run on this line, the Chancellor’s commitment was very welcome. However, since the by-election, this stated ambition has begun to look dangerously like it was just naked electioneering. We shouldn’t stand for this – the Government need to act now to come good on their hurried election commitments and provide the much-needed (and long-talked about) investment in Lincoln-Nottingham rail.

Unfortunately, the case for faster, more frequent trains between Lincoln, Newark and Nottingham is extremely well-rehearsed. The fastest Nottingham to Lincoln journey time is 50 minutes and services travel at an average speed of just 39 miles an hour. Trains take longer on this route now than they did before the First World War.

The line needs upgrading to allow for faster journey times, following which the frequency of trains could increase if more rolling stock were made available. The changes to the service which are proposed by the CastleLine project would also double the frequency of trains to Hykeham.

Before the 2010 general election, £51 million of investment had been set aside to cut the Lincoln to Nottingham journey time to 35 minutes by 2015, but the funding was scrapped by the Coalition after 2010 – to much disappointment. This said, those campaigning for a better service had their hopes for investment and service improvements understandably raised by the government during the recent by-election.

However, after the by-election fever died down, the local growth deals announced by the government last month revealed that local councils would actually have to fund improved Lincoln to Nottingham services for three years before the government would even consider providing investment.

The Greater Lincolnshire Growth Deal, announced on July 7, said: “The Department for Transport commits to working with D2N2 and the Greater Lincolnshire Local Enterprise Partnership and partners to help achieve the objective of increased service frequency between Lincoln and Nottingham via Newark. If local funding is provided to operate incremental rail services for three years and services prove successful, the Department for Transport commits to considering funding service levels thereafter.”

Given the Chancellor’s recent commitment, this announcement was disappointing to say the least.

In line with our Growth Deal, our own City of Lincoln Council has committed funding, as have our County Council, Nottinghamshire County Council and Greater Lincolnshire LEP. Now the Government should deliver, not in three years time but far sooner, honouring their by-election commitment.

When the need for better services and their benefit to residents and our local economy is so clear, and when the local will for improvements is proven, it’s high time for Osborne to be true to his word.

Lucy Rigby is Lincoln Labour's candidate to be the city's next MP. She is a solicitor and lives in central Lincoln.

By Lucy Rigby lucyrigby

The state of the NHS is raised with me again and again on the doorstep and in correspondence from residents. Over recent months, I’ve noticed that concerns have become more widespread and, unfortunately, the evidence makes clear that these concerns are well-founded.

I’m frequently told that it’s much harder to get an appointment to see a family doctor. When I looked up the statistics, I found that a huge 60% of patients say they can’t see their GP within 2 days. In the Lincs West Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG – which covers Lincoln) alone, 31,168 people say they’ve waited more than a week. There are also fewer GPs working in the NHS.

One of this government’s first acts was to scrap the guarantee of a GP appointment within 48 hours: the effect of this is now being felt.

A&Es are another cause of worry and, again, the evidence bears this out. Across the country, A&Es have missed their 4 hour waiting time target every week for 53 weeks in a row. In the last year, nearly a million people waited for over 4 hours at A&E.

The statistics are even worse for patients who need to be admitted into hospital after visiting A&E. Those waiting on trolleys for longer than 4 hours has almost trebled from 61,969 in 2009/10 to 167,969 in 2013/14.

As might be expected given these figures, experts now say that A&Es don’t have safe staffing levels. Thousands of nurses and frontline staff have been lost from the NHS since 2010; in fact, 7,000 NHS frontline staff were made redundant between 2010/11 and 2012/13.

The average length of time people are having to wait for treatment is also on the rise. Waiting lists are at their highest in 6 years and now exceed 3 million people. If you are unfortunate enough to be waiting for a treatment like a cataract removal or a knee operation (as some I know are), these are being rationed.

People who need diagnostic tests, such as CT or MRI scans, ultrasounds and endoscopy tests, have to wait longer too, as – shockingly – do cancer patients. The latter led Cancer Research UK to warn recently that “some patients are being failed”.

In short, the NHS is deteriorating before our eyes.

This isn’t what people want and it’s not what they thought they were voting for in 2010. Cameron told his Party Conference in 2006 that his “priority” for an incoming Tory government could be summed up “in three letters: N.H.S.” How entirely misleading and transparent this has been proven to be. One thing is certain: the NHS can’t afford another 5 years of this.

Labour’s Shadow Health Secretary Andy Burnham MP has made clear he would do things very differently in a year’s time. Patient care, not ideology, will be the priority.

Over the past 4 years, the Conservatives have purposely facilitated the creeping privatisation of large swathes of NHS services. When hospitals go into the red and more services are contracted out to private providers, it becomes more likely that they will soon be charged for, rather than being free at the point of need.

Almost half of NHS bosses believe the health service is under such strain that patients will be forced to pay for at least some services within 10 years. A Labour Secretary of State would guarantee the very cornerstone of the NHS: that it is a national service free at the point of use.

Labour would also guarantee a GP appointment within 48 hours (or on the same day for the people who need it) and guarantee a booking ahead beyond 48 hours for a named GP. Importantly, we’d introduce ‘whole person care’ too, bringing together physical health, mental health and social care into a single service to meet all a patient’s care needs.

The 2015 general election will present voters with a critically important choice about what they want the future of this country to look like. With regard to our NHS, that choice is between it continuing its rapid and dangerous decline or, instead, being allowed the opportunity to survive and serve us all.

Lucy Rigby is Lincoln Labour's candidate to be the city's next MP. She is a solicitor and lives in central Lincoln.