Celebrating 60 years of the NHS with a brand new health and local services centre in Streatham
I was delighted to welcome Alan Johnson MP, Secretary of State for Health, to Streatham today with Keith Hill MP, for the opening of Gracefield Gardens health and social care centre.
The £8.9m landmark building, situated just off Streatham High Road, opened its doors in the New Year and provides NHS primary care services, including GPs, and a Lambeth Council customer centre providing advice and information to local people on council services.
The funding for the scheme was part of a £30m construction and refurbishment programme across Lambeth, Southwark and Lewisham under the NHS local improvement finance trust (LIFT) initiative announced in August 2002.
One of the reasons I chose to join the Labour Party was because it was the post war Labour government (1945-51) which set up the NHS to ensure equality of health service provision and a truly national service for all (instead of a piecemeal provision, which had existed across the country up to that point). It is worth remembering that that Labour government led by Clement Attlee set up this national treasure in the face of opposition from other parties.
The NHS celebrates its 60th anniversary on 5 July 2008 and what better way to mark this than with the opening of this fantastic new centre. Labour has trebled investment into the NHS to £100bn since 1997 but big numbers mean little to the every day person on the street in my view – it is tangible things like this centre which people can see and use which demonstrate the return on that investment and the positive difference that can be made locally. (The Prime Minister’s wife, Sarah Brown, is pictured, right, at the centre earlier this year)
