“The future of the NHS& ”
That’s how the Health Secretary, Wes Streeting, described Barnsley town centre when he visited last week.
He was in our town to officially open the new health hub at the Alhambra Shopping Centre - and it’s safe to say he was very impressed by Barnsley Council’s Health on the High Street initiative.
The idea behind the initiative is simple but revolutionary: bring every day NHS services into accessible places that people already use, cutting down on travel, reducing pressure on the hospital, and making it easier for people to get the care they need.
So that’s the principle - but what does it look like in practice?
The new Alhambra hub is an outpatient centre designed to provide convenient access to quick care.
The first services on offer include ophthalmology, optometry and retinal screening. Rheumatology, dermatology and orthotics will be available later this year.
By 2028, a wellbeing centre, gym and mental health centre will also be available.
Next door is the Community Diagnostic Centre (CDC) at the Glass Works. In the three years since it opened, it’s provided over 220,000 appointments for blood tests, X-rays, ultrasounds and other essential diagnostics.
The results speak for themselves: breast screenings are up 22 per cent and missed appointments are down 24 per cent.
It’s no surprise, then, that the Health Secretary is rolling out diagnostic centres modelled on the Barnsley blueprint nationally. In fact, since Labour came to power, diagnostic centres have delivered nine million checks, tests and scans.
This has meant quicker answers for patients and it’s helped the Labour government deliver five million extra appointments, cutting waiting lists by more than 312,000.
Barnsley’s Labour council and the government have played significant parts in this success, developing the local and national strategies and backing them with investment.
But it’s thanks to the hard graft of countless NHS staff across our town and country that this investment is being transformed into improvement. We owe them a debt of gratitude; their efforts mean initiatives like Health on the High Street can succeed.
So, as we’re proving in Barnsley, the answer to turning the NHS around is investment, modernisation and thinking outside the box.
The answer is not the NHS-destroying idea being pushed by Nigel Farage and Reform. Remember when Farage called for a French-style, insurance-based healthcare system? In 2024, the average French citizen paid ¬ 979 in insurance& older people paid even more.
That’s not the system we want. When Labour founded the NHS, we did so on the principle that everyone deserves access to healthcare free at the point of use.
Moving to an insurance model, like Reform want, would abandon that principle and take us down a path where the kind of healthcare you receive depends on your income.
Barnsley’s Labour council has shown there’s a better way. Back our NHS, invest, and bring care closer to communities. That’s exactly what Labour will keep doing.
