This will be the section looking at health and the provision of healthcare in Chelmsford.

If elected the following policy will inform and guide decisions and campaigns by Chelmsford Labour Party representatives.

Public Ownership

1. The NHS should be a public entity, and the selling off of services to private contractors for profit is unacceptable.

• • Any health service commissioned by a Labour council will be publicly owned.
  • We will campaign to keep any commissioned service in public hands.
  • As we take services back into public hands, we will cap the fees of agencies so they can’t be any higher than those employed by the public sector.
  • We will look to use empty high street buildings for new GP practices.

Adult Social Care

2. The U.K. is facing an adult social care crisis, with insufficient funding and increasing demand, we need to tackle this crisis head on.

• • We will stop the privatisation of adult social care and bring it back into public hands, with a well trained and well paid work force.
  • We will work to tackle loneliness with care packages and by bringing in more charities and volunteers.
  • Physiotherapy and occupational therapists will be paid for by the council to work in conjunction with local GP practices to help keep the elderly healthy, preventing falls risk and further deterioration.

Child Mental Health Services

3. Child mental health services have been decimated and are inaccessible to those that need them.
   • We will look to reinvest in council delivered child mental health services.
   • We will work with our communities to identify how we as a council can help increase the quality of the services we provide

Public Health

4. Our public services are stretched to breaking point, this has directly impacted how we provided public health care.
   • We pledge to be transparent and open with all public health issues.
   • Train frontline staff to recognise and offer advice on alcohol dependency.
   • Develop Chelmsford as a ‘Dementia Friendly City’.
   • We will invest in our food safety standards and restore the necessary number of environmental health officers.

Healthcare for Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) People

5. People of colour, and more specifically Black people are less likely to receive the same quality of healthcare, and are more likely to suffer discrimination when they make contact with the services.
   • We will work with our BAME communities to identify problem areas when accessing healthcare and work to improve access for these communities – with a focus on the high mortality rates of pregnant women and their children under 2.

Local Healthcare

6. Whilst not being responsible for the delivery of the local health services, many council responsibilities are intimately linked. We will do what we can to keep oversight of the services.
   • We will work to identify and publish local healthcare statistics so residents can find the information they need quickly and easily.
   • We will join up the healthcare and council services to work on improving the lives of Chelmsford Residents.
   • We will campaign to reverse the STP and return services to Chelmsford.

Accessibility

7. The council has a role in supporting the lives of every Chelmsford resident, and we will run council services with accessibility at the heart of everything we do.
   • We will create a transparent process for blue badges, with a fast track application in conjunction with your GP.