Frank's Westminster Blog

In this final column prior to the General Election campaign, there are three very important questions that each local candidate will need to answer if they seek to help local residents get on in life. What will they do to protect our NHS? How will they improve local residents’ standard of living? And how will they ensure all children are given the best start in life? We have seen time and again over the past couple of years the immense strain on our frontline health services,...

May I please thank local residents and, above all, the wonderful staff at Broadgreen Hospital for their terrific support over the past few days? It was lovely to receive such a large number of messages from you, and I much enjoyed replying to many of them. I returned to the House of Commons this week to see the Modern Slavery Bill through its final stages. I am so pleased that having lobbied the Home Secretary just over a year ago to introduce this Bill, and worked hard since to make the...

If Wirral University Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust was a private company it would have been wound up long ago. Monitor, the organisation that deals with dysfunctional parts of the NHS, thank goodness, is taking action against the chaos at Arrowe Park. Last year I asked the Health Secretary for help by investigating the governance of our primary healthcare. I stressed that it was important not simply to look at the CCG but its relationship to Arrowe Park. NHS North West moved swiftly

May I please salute our local voluntary groups and churches who are stepping up the fight against hunger in Birkenhead? Following our most recent meeting of Feeding Birkenhead, Involve Northwest and Wirral Citizens Advice Bureau have agreed to send a representative to attend various food bank sessions in Birkenhead to help clients with benefits and debt issues. This intervention may help prevent somebody’s first emergency visit to a food bank becoming two, three or even more. Love Food...