If Wes Streeting wants to reform NHS, he could do worse than a visit to my GP | UK | News

Every time I fill out a friends and family questionnaire after a GP appointment, I say my visit could have been made better with dancing horses and a glass of prosecco on arrival. I prefer prosecco over champagne because I know the NHS faces serious financial pressures. But despite this, I never got my wish and I have been a patient in my operating room for almost six years. That’s why I’m now taking the radical step of inviting Wes Streeting (hoping he sees this column rather than sending out an invitation) to the grand opening of the annex at the rear of Stovell House Surgery in Croydon, scheduled to open next month.

It might seem a bit strange to invite the Minister of Health to a grand opening when I don’t know if there will be any events and even if there are, I have no control over the guest list and it is not my job to invite anyone. But he listened to me during the Daily Express’ Cancer Care campaign, so I hope he will listen to me again. The reason he visits is not because I have the chance to grab a glass of prosecco at the GP surgery, especially since I don’t drink it anymore.

But I also worry that the Department of Health will not have their eye on GP surgery standards, so the Department of Health’s focus seems to be on introducing the new neighborhood health service where people can have things like ECGs and X-Rays done at “community diagnostic centres” rather than going to hospital.

As someone with incurable bowel cancer, I feel awkward when I’m not in hospital, and I regularly took a short trip to the x-ray department while I waited for chemotherapy, or sat in a chair in the day unit, flashing my hairy ankles and chest to a paramedic so they could put ECG stickers on me while I was being treated for cancer.

I appreciate that for people who don’t spend their entire lives in the hospital, it would be a blessing to not have to go there for minor procedures.

But everyone’s “health journey” needs to start somewhere, and so it’s important not to focus on GP surgeries.

I hear horror stories from friends about GPs not liking the sight of blood, having to return several times to get an answer as to why they were so sick, and finding out the results of life-changing tests from an app on their phone rather than a doctor in person breaking the news to them and explaining what can be done.

I then tell them about my experiences in Croydon and they are amazed at the difference. Apart from Croydon University Hospital being one of the first places in the country to receive the Covid vaccine, the south London borough is more likely to be in the news for knife crime than its healthcare.

But if the Health Minister turns up to the opening of the annex to Stovell House, he will see what GP surgeries should aim for.

You won’t like it that my appointments almost always fill up because I talk too much, but I once managed to go to the hospital for back pain and be out again in under seven minutes.

But I hope he will confirm how my GPs Dr Perren and Dr Tavares have saved my life time and time again since moving to the county during Covid.

Unlike my time at my so-called “world-leading” cancer hospital, where I always felt a little nervous, I feel safe around GPs and know they will treat me like a person rather than a patient.

Wes Streeting is sure to witness this kind of care if he comes in for surgery. He won’t see the dancing horses but he will see what the NHS needs to do across the country.

There is hope for the NHS by replicating what it did at Stovell House in surgeries across the country and making it the beginning of Labour’s “community healthcare”.

This is vital not only for patients with long-term health conditions like mine, but also for people who rarely see their clinician but need antibiotics for tonsillitis or want advice about an ankle sprain.

So Wes, are you ready for this?