Last week I caught up with bosses of the NHS Foundation Trust that runs Chorley and South Ribble Hospital. The senior team gives me a lot of confidence that our precious local services are in safe hands.
A new Urgent Care Unit is being built at Chorley Hospital. I support this, as I think it will safeguard our local A&E Department by helping it to focus on the most life-threatening or serious cases, with less urgent problems being dealt with on the hospital site by an emergency GP service.
However, this change is resulting in the relocation of the Euxton-based emergency GP service. At our meeting this week, I pressed local NHS bosses on what this will mean for Euxton residents who will find it harder to get the hospital, rather than to a local centre. More meetings are in the diary now, as I work to ensure that access is not compromised for those in Euxton without private means of transport.
Conservatives have vowed to continue to protect the NHS from real-term budget cuts. Investment in our health service is only possible because of the robust and sustained economic recovery the UK is seeing under the Conservative long term economic plan.