My plan for a healthier South Yorkshire

To make that vision a reality I will:

Build on our pioneering ‘Beds for Babies’ scheme, guaranteeing a safe place to sleep for every child under-5 across South Yorkshire. 

Our pioneering Beds for Babies scheme is a nationally leading response to the crisis of child poverty, guaranteeing a safe place to sleep – a bed, Moses basket or cot – for any child under five who needs it across South Yorkshire. But I want to go further. So we will work with NHS, Council, charity, private sector and university partners to further build on that scheme, to learn from the Beds for Babies programme to better understand what else we can do to help families who desperately need our help across South Yorkshire.

Develop an ambitious cancer strategy for South Yorkshire, saving as many people as possible from the devastating impact of cancer.

A cancer diagnosis is not just devastating for the person who receives it, but the impact of that diagnosis ripples out across families and our communities. For all sorts of reasons, people in South Yorkshire are both more likely to suffer from cancer and more likely to die from cancer sooner. So I will develop a South Yorkshire cancer strategy, asking every part of the system to work together to give every person here the best possible chance of beating cancer.

Establish a South Yorkshire Digital Health Innovation Hub, using cutting edge technology to solve health problems across South Yorkshire.  

The health inequalities facing South Yorkshire are stark. We have a healthy life expectancy gap of twenty years across our region. But while poor health outcomes scar the economy and communities of South Yorkshire, we also have some leading health institutions, innovators and thinkers. We have already built on that expertise through our work with partners such as Google Health, but I will create a Digital Health Innovation Hub that allows us to build on and focus that work, so that South Yorkshire can go further and faster in tackling the health inequalities holding us back.  

Work with our councils and our NHS to improve hospitals and healthcare facilities and access, bringing healthcare closer to our communities. 

While I have no formal powers to solve all the very real problems with access to NHS services, where I can step in I will. That is why I will invest to build on the ‘Community Diagnostic Centre’ model in Barnsley through funding for the ‘Health on Your High Street’ concept, and I will explore the potential for that model to be developed elsewhere in South Yorkshire. I will continue to fight for funding to give Doncaster the hospital it deserves. And I will make the case to government for more health devolution in South Yorkshire, so we can access more money, power and control over NHS services here in our region.   

Build on our Working Win programme and Barnsley Council’s thought leading Pathways to Work Commission to help people back into work, good jobs and new careers.

We are already pioneering approaches to help people back into work. The Working Win programme offers one-to-one support for people suffering from health challenges, so they can get into and stay in work. The Pathways to Work Commission, developed by Barnsley Council and Chaired by former Secretary of State for Health Alan Milburn, will offer solutions to the very real challenges faced by those people not in work. I will build on both those programmes to help everyone across South Yorkshire make the most of their talents, so we can build a bigger and better economy that everyone can access.