Watch more of our videos on Shots!
and live on Freeview channel 276

‘I think people up and down the country, and here in Portsmouth, are really angry that they can’t see a GP.’

The deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats visited Portsmouth today to address health and social care issues facing the city.

Daisy Cooper, MP for St Albans, is both the deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats and the party’s spokesperson for health and social care.

NOW SEE: The highest and lowest-rated GP surgeries in Portsmouth, according to patients

Lib Dem health spokesman Daisy Cooper MP outside Trafalgar Medical Group Practice, Southsea
Picture: Habibur Rahman — Lib Dem health spokesman Daisy Cooper MP outside Trafalgar Medical Group Practice, Southsea Picture: Habibur Rahman

Portsmouth has one of the worst GP-to-patient ratios in the country and staff shortages have resulted in the closure of North Harbour Medical Practice in Cosham.

Daisy Cooper said: ‘If people can’t see a GP – then they become more ill and then eventually they end up presenting often in secondary care or A&E.

‘I think people up and down the country, and here in Portsmouth, are really angry that they can’t see a GP when they want to and I know that GPs themselves are incredibly frustrated. They can’t always give the level of care that they would want if they had all the staff that they could have.

‘GPs have to be at the heart of that community care with all the other health services built around them right at the heart of every community including here in Portsmouth.

Alex Speight, Dr John Price, MP Daisy Cooper, Dr Shruti Singh and Cllr Gerald Vernon Jackson outside Trafalgar Medical Group Practice
Picture: Habibur Rahman — Alex Speight, Dr John Price, MP Daisy Cooper, Dr Shruti Singh and Cllr Gerald Vernon Jackson outside Trafalgar Medical Group Practice Picture: Habibur Rahman

‘The Conservative government has been running our health and social care services into the ground for years.

‘As a result, people have been leaving the health service and we haven’t been recruiting the people that we need.

‘This winter we saw an NHS crisis on a level that we have never seen before, in previous years it was always a question of how many beds were full and how much capacity we have left and this year we saw the NHS crisis is measured in terms of how many people were dying in the back of ambulances, how many people were dying in the street, how many people were dying in hospital corridors it was really and truly awful.

‘I do think there’s a strong argument to make sure that to narrow the health inequalities that are getting worse and worse we have to look at having some weighted intervention to support those communities that have worse health outcomes.’

Lib Dem MP takes aim at government over lack of doctors in Portsmouth

NOW SEE: The highest and lowest-rated GP surgeries in Portsmouth, according to patients