Katy Gordon

Katy has called for the 60th year of the NHS to be the beginning of a radical redesign in the delivery community healthcare, with the focus on ensuring all elements of the NHS provide healthcare 24 hours a day.

Katy said:

“As the NHS celebrates its sixtieth birthday next month, the state of the health service will be as hotly debated as ever. Throughout the past six decades every Scot will have benefited from NHS services. There is no other institution that commands the degree of public pride and respect as the National Health Service.

“I believe that the NHS should stay true to its founding principles. This to me means a health service that works 24 hours to look after the health of all of our patients.

“That’s why I conducted my recent NHS Health Survey, and am still welcoming comments from residents giving me their thoughts on local services.

“Liberal Democrats are calling for a full review of the way the NHS provides care in the community but we are not advocating a return to the dark days when GPs alone shouldered the burden of arduous on-call rotas.

“Instead of bullying doctors into providing limited services for extended hours, Ministers should be sitting round the table with doctors and representatives from other key health areas to plan the best way to provide a 24 hour care in the community.

“2008 must be the year individual patients regain 24 hour health care in their local community.”