This week we put the candidates on the spot on issues affecting the people of Swindon.

Today’s subject is Health... and our questions are:

With the GWH struggling during winter months, how will your party help it to cope with demand?

How will you help local authorities deal with the increased demand for adult care, an issue set to rise further?

Many in Swindon complain about waiting times for GPs – what will you do to help this problem?

ROBERT BUCKLAND:

1. With £6,83m winter funding for Swindon and Wiltshire, plus a further total £20m increase for community health services in Swindon, we are committed to more support for our NHS. There are 78 more doctors and 424 more nurses at GWH than in 2010. Speedier discharge care plans are essential if we are to free up beds more quickly.

2. We have set up the £5.3b Better Care Fund, which will help bring together health and social care here in Swindon and nationally.

We will increase support for full time unpaid carers and improve services for people who are terminally ill. We will support authorities like Swindon that are already working with the NHS to integrate their services.

3. Although there are 1,000 more GPs in the NHS than in 2010, there is a recruitment issue that needs to be addressed. Swindon is receiving extra funding from the Prime Minister’s Innovation Fund to help develop local GP services even further. I will work to ensure that our local surgeries and Clinical Commissioning Group act in partnership to reduce the problems we are seeing in some areas.

ANNE SNELGROVE:

1. I was disappointed the GWH didn’t get £4.3 million it needed to help with winter pressures in 2013-14; as your MP I would have fought for that.

Labour will invest £2.5 billion more in the NHS – fully costed through a tax on the tobacco companies and mansions worth over £2 million.

2. Labour will introduce wholeperson care and bring together mental, physical and social health care to make the service better for individual patients. We’ll provide joined up care from home to hospital and end the scandal of 15 minute care slots so that more people can stay in their own homes.

3. I’ve campaigned against GP closures and cuts to opening hours – Swindon needs active MPs who will fight to keep services. Labour will employ 8,000 more doctors and restore everyone’s right to see a doctor in 48 hours. The Tories scrapped that in 2010 but we know we can deliver it again.

JOHN SHORT:

1. Great Western Hospital is struggling in general – it needs a review in A&E to meet the increased demand. The frontline staff are stretched along with the ambulance services. It needs greater finance to have more doctors and nurses and also a review on the size of the hospital with a minimum of a further 150 beds.

The situation of bed blocking needs addressing from hospital to home care systems.

2. Adult care needs a separate department set up within the local authority with a specific government funded budget set in-line with local needs. This should be managed and controlled by the local authority. Further care homes need to be built and care at home needs to be delivered at the point of need and not on limited time scales.

3. UKIP would introduce 7 day opening at all local surgeries. The surgeries would be also open during weekday evenings where demand is shown.

TALIS KIMBERLEY-FAIRBOURN:

1. Our first MP, Caroline Lucas, introduced the NHS Reinstatement Bill before Parliament closed its session; we will stop the creeping privatisation and return the NHS wholly to public hands. Our priorities are proper public funding, and more accessible, localised services including especially mental health provision and preventative care.

2. The current austerity measures are increasing poverty, malnutrition, mental health issues, and homelessness. Everyone at any age and in any state of health deserves a decent place to live and enough to live on, but planning for adult social care while driving others into destitution and despair makes little sense.

3. We want more local services in communities, and resources like health care must be factored in when housing is discussed.

Increasing populations without increasing infrastructure is irresponsible.

All these issues – health, housing, transport - are connected, so departmental territoriality must be challenged.

DAMON HOOTON:

No response was received by the Adver from Damon Hooton