Andy Burnham visits the West Midlands

Yesterday, I spent the day with Secretary of State for Health, Andy Burnham on a series of visits round the West Midlands.

We started with a visit to the new ‘super’ hospital in Coventry. This 1250 bed hospital, has 27 operating theatres and 250 specialists in cancer care, dialysis, heart care and many other areas. 
 
Andy started out by visiting the Breast Cancer Screening Unit, where he met staff and patients. They discussed how new protocols on screening women had already picked up 22 cases of breast cancer this year alone. A couple of patients spontaneously stopped Andy to praise the quality of care they had been receiving. The screening unit uses digital screening and we saw examples of the improved clarity of images this produces. We went on to the state of the art dialysis Unit, and met transplant patients who described the amazing impact on their lives.

From there we drove to BRMB, the Birmingham radio station, where Andy gave a quick interview.

Between each visit, Andy was chatting to local and regional press, giving interviews by phone  [photo of Andy on the phone in the car] making it a non-stop day for him!

Then we drove on to Dudley, where we were met by local candidate Rachel Harris PPC for Dudley South. She gave us a tour of the newly built Brierly Hill Health and Social Care Centre. This extraordinary new building is only days away from being handed over to the NHS and we were lucky to get a sneak preview. It’s a model of how integrated care and one-stop-shop provision can work. Andy described this to me as a great example of the change we see from investment in the NHS under the Labour government.

Then it was off again, to visit the hospital in Rowley Regis. We were met by a group of local people, mainly users of the hospital who were protesting against scaremongering by the Tories. Residents told me that they had been asked by Conservatives to sign a petition to ‘save the hospital’. However, there are no plans to close Rowley Regis.

Throughout the day, Andy talked to people about Labour’s commitments on health in the new manifesto.

You can see the mini Manifesto film on health here.

For my interview with Andy, you can listen here.