Column: Saving our NHS is a promise made and a promise now kept

We have reached this target seven months earlier than expected, meaning thousands of patients have received vital operations, scans, treatments earlier than planned, helping them get back to work and on with their lives sooner.

This is a promise made and a promise kept. This is the change that people elected us to deliver last July.

Of all the crises that this Labour Government inherited, saving our NHS was the one people in High Peak cared about most on the doorstep. The Conservatives left nearly eight million people on waiting lists. That meant that nearly every family in High Peak knew someone who had been left in pain waiting for and worrying about their treatment.

The Conservatives should never be trusted with the health of our nation again.

In stark contrast this Labour Government has hit the ground running to fix the broken health service we inherited by tackling the waiting lists, and building an NHS fit for the future. This includes ending NHS strikes so staff are on the front line instead of the picket line this winter, vaccinating more people against flu than this time last year and putting immediate investment into our health system through £1.8 billion to fund extra elective care appointments as part of record £26 billion extra NHS funding secured at the October Budget.

The tough decisions the Chancellor has taken are paying off for all of us who rely on the NHS.

But this is only the start. Hitting this milestone is a crucial step towards treating 92 per cent of elective care patients within 18 weeks of referral by the end of this Parliament, delivering a core commitment in our NHS Plan for Change.

We will meet the 18-week target through long overdue reforms to overhaul the system, support staff, cut waste and put patients first, creating millions more appointments in the process. The plan includes freeing up around one million more appointments every year by removing non-essential follow-ups, publishing a new deal with the independent sector to increase capacity, revolutionising the NHS app to give patients greater choice and control over their treatment and preventing unnecessary referrals by incentivising GPs to work with hospital doctors to get specialist advice.

The Government has also launched a nationwide consultation on the 10 Year Health Plan to build an NHS fit for the future and secured an extra £2 billion to upgrade NHS technology and £1 billion to deal with the massive NHS maintenance backlog.

The doom-mongers from the Conservatives and Reform will tell you the NHS doesn’t work.

We’re going to prove them wrong. The NHS is only safe with a Labour Government.