Having spent most of my career working in healthcare, including over seven years in the NHS, I know how vital it is that our health service delivers for patients. When Labour took office last July, the Health Secretary claimed the NHS was ‘broken’, setting the stage for his supposed rescue plan. But nine months in, what has actually changed? The answer is nothing.

Labour’s grand promises have resulted in no meaningful improvements to patient care. In fact, it’s a replay of the failures we’ve seen again and again in Labour-run Wales for years.

As a member of the Health and Social Care Select Committee, I constantly hold senior politicians, national organisations, and private companies to account. I take this role seriously because I care deeply about our healthcare system, both as your local MP and as someone who has worked within it.

That’s why I want to set the record straight about Labour’s so-called NHS ‘investment.’

Last week’s Emergency Budget laid bare the reality: not a single penny of Labour’s much-touted NHS funding is going to patient services. Instead, as confirmed by NHS England’s Chief Financial Officer, it’s being swallowed by new jobs taxes, pay rises, and higher drug costs, while inflation erodes the rest. There’s no improvement in productivity, no boost in frontline care - just another illusion of progress.

Indeed, the reduction in some waiting times that Labour now points to as evidence of success is actually the result of the significant investment made by the last Conservative government. It was this investment that boosted doctor and nurse numbers and introduced service improvements such as Community Diagnostic Centres prior to July.

On Friday, I visited Shooting Star Children’s Hospice in Surrey. They welcomed additional funding, but it doesn’t even cover their higher Employer’s National Insurance bill. The same story is playing out across our community including at GP surgeries in Farnham, at Badgerswood Pharmacy in Headley, and across the East Hampshire Primary Care Network. Labour’s economic choices are piling pressure on those already stretched to breaking point.

I have warned before about the damage Labour’s fiscal delusions will cause. Now, we’re seeing it unfold in real time. We need a government that will genuinely support and improve the NHS, not one that burdens it with higher costs and empty rhetoric.

As an Opposition MP and a Health Committee member, I will continue to challenge these failures. But unless Wes Streeting stands up to the Chancellor and her tax-hungry advisers, the NHS will remain stuck in crisis mode.

I will keep fighting for better healthcare in our community. It’s time for the Government to do the same for the country.