David Cameron promised the NHS would be safe in his hands.

Since then:

4,000 nurses have been axed
Ambulance queues are up 50%
A&E waiting times are at a 9 year high
Billions have been wasted on an unneccesary top-down reorganisation of the NHS

Only Labour can protect and strengthen the NHS for the future

The price of Tory failure

The price of Tory failure

David Cameron and George Osborne are failing on the economy. And middle and lower income families are paying the price, while millionaires get more.

• Slow growth and high unemployment means that David Cameron and George Osborne are borrowing £212 billion more than they planned
  
• Working families are losing another £279 next year
  
  
• But 8,000 people earning £1 million a year are getting a tax cut worth an average £107,500

We need Labour’s plan for the economy: an economy that grows, where everybody has a stake and the rewards are fairly shared.

Labour is calling for:

• A real plan for jobs and growth – including a temporary VAT cut and a bank bonus tax to guarantee jobs for young people
  
• Long term reform of our economy and banks to make our economy stronger
   
• Cancelling the tax cut for millionaires at a time when millions of families and pensioners are paying more
  
  
  

Bolton A&E department

Recent stories in the press have raised questions about the future of Royal Bolton Hospital's Accident and Emergency (A&E) Department.

The “Healthier Together” review being led by NHS Greater Manchester on behalf of the area's twelve Clinical Commissioning Groups, including Bolton, is considering what ‘best care’ for patients may look like in a range of clinical areas provided in most district general hospitals, in the community and in primary care.

There are nine areas of health under review including urgent and emergency care. NHS Greater Manchester are stressing that this review is clinician led. A public consultation is due to begin in Spring 2013.

Royal Bolton Hospital's A&E Department is the second busiest in Greater Manchester, dealing with over 110,000 patients in 2010. It serves the population of Bolton and surrounding districts with an estimated population of 330,000, including over 20% of cases which come from outside the Bolton PCT area.

People in Bolton value their local hospital and their local A&E department – they expect it to be there for them when they need it. In an emergency they do not want to face the potential risks involved of having to travel to an A&E department in another town or city e.g. Wigan or Salford.

It is vital that Bolton has its own fully functioning A&E department.

I will urge people in Bolton to respond to the consultation when it begins in order to show the strength of feeling on this issue.

I will fight to keep Bolton's A&E department open.

Labour's Local Election Campaign 2012

These are tough times. Unemployment is going up and living standards are falling as families face a quiet crisis of rising living costs – with petrol prices, train fares and energy bills soaring. These elections are our chance to make a difference to that.

Labour is with you: on the side of working families. Labour councils and councillors will work hard to deliver fairness in tough times and protect families from the worst of the Tory-led Government’s cuts.

The Tories are out of touch: and making things harder not easier. A million young people are out of work and families are feeling the squeeze, but the Tories and their Liberal Democrat allies are hitting families and pensioners’ with new tax rises and tax credit cuts. They are cutting 16,000 police from the streets and laying off thousands of nurses in the NHS – while at the same time giving millionaires a tax cut.

Tuition fees trebled to £9,000
even though they promised to abolish them

VAT increased to 20 per cent
even though they campaigned against it

A top-down reorganisation of the NHS
even though they ruled this out in the Coalition Agreement

Cuts and tax rises that go too far, too fast and hit the poorest hardest, with a stagnant economy and rising unemployment
even though they warned that this was “extremely dangerous given the weakness of our economy”

The Lib Dems say they have “nothing to apologise for”.

What do you think?

Labour understands that Britain has a responsibility to safeguard the future of the next generation and give them the support they need to make the most of their potential.

With one in five young people unemployed, the EMA scrapped and the trebling of tuition fees, there is a real danger that the talent of the younger generation will be lost.

We are calling on the Tory-led Government to create thousands of new apprentice places with “Jobs for Contracts” – a plan which would require any company wanting to provide goods or services to the public sector to have an apprenticeship scheme.