Aylesbury MP given national role to help ‘rebuild’ NHS

As Labour’s ‘national health mission delivery champion’, she will work with ministers to ‘build an NHS fit for the future’.

Kyrke-Smith will be expected to attend meetings of the new ‘health mission delivery board set up by Labour.

The board aims to double the number of cancer scanners, create a ‘dentistry rescue plan’, recruit 8,500 additional mental health staff and cut NHS waiting times by providing 40,000 more appointments per week.

Kyrke-Smith, who is the first Labour MP in Aylesbury’s history, met with NHS England’s Chief Executive Amanda Pritchard last week to speak about ‘prevention’, as well as the pressures faced by Stoke Mandeville Hospital.

The MP said: “I am committed to getting the NHS back on its feet and fit for the future.

“The NHS locally is not delivering as it should for patients and NHS staff alike: from the GPs surgeries struggling to deal with demand for appointments, to those patients waiting for operations.

“Drawing on those experiences I hear from residents, I will be pushing forward the fundamental reforms needed to rebuild the NHS across Aylesbury, the villages, and indeed the country.”

Earlier this month, Kyrke-Smith said she was ‘concerned’ by the situation at Whitehill Surgery in her constituency after it emerged that 63 per cent of calls there were being abandoned.

But the MP said the difficulties patients were having booking GP appointments were widespread and that underfunding by successive Conservative governments was to blame.