CHIPPENHAM Conservative candidate Michelle Donelan feels she had a part to play in Health Minister Matt Hancock's new plan to recruit more GPs to cut patient waiting times.

When Mr Hancock visited Chippenham Hospital last week, Ms Donelan told him that more GPs must be hired to create more appointments.

On Monday the Secretary of State announced a plan to make 50 million new appointments for patients to see GPs available in the country in the next five years. This would mean thousands of new appointments in Wiltshire, reducing the waiting time to see a GP.

Ms Donelan said: "Politicians often say nice things about the NHS but people here in Wiltshire want those words to be translated into results that they can actually feel and see. For the majority of us, our most regular contact with the NHS is through our local GP surgery and while we know that GPs do an incredible job, for too long their workloads have been too high and the number of available appointments has been too low.

"This plan will mean that thousands of new appointment slots will be available here in the Chippenham Constituency. This will be achieved not through shortcuts or warm words, but through an ambitious programme of hiring and retaining new GPs for our surgeries.

"The result we will feel locally will be shorter waiting times to get an appointment, more choice over when that appointment is and the GP you see will have a smaller workload to deal with."