SUMMER recess is now well underway.

Last year I spent my time away from Westminster visiting around seventy of our local nuclear companies, all based in Copeland. This year I have chosen to focus on the health and social care sector.

While this was a decision I made some time ago, it became a much more personal endeavour as earlier this month my father-in-law, Reg Harrison, very sadly passed away.

Reg had been wonderfully cared for at Bethshan Residential Nursing Home in Whitehaven for nearly two years.

Towards the end of Reg’s life, the Home took on a different, but equally vital role for our family, providing high quality, end of life care. Compassion, patience, professional competence and a consistent feeling that we were welcome to visit at any time of day or night, and to stay for as long as we needed, made a difficult time in our lives, a time to come together to share fond and very happy memories of a father, father-in-law, grandad, great grandad and very much loved character in the Whitehaven community.

I have been meeting with staff and volunteers at many of our local GP surgeries and care homes as well as joining the North West Ambulance Service for an overnight shift – working to better communicate the brilliant work of our health, medical and social care teams. Having previously worked as a home carer I know first-hand the long hours and physical demands of the job, and I appreciate the enormously rewarding aspects of care.

Our society is wholly dependent on carers both paid and unpaid and I will continue to work with our local hospitals, care homes, volunteer carers and GP surgeries to both understand the challenges and help where I can - I sincerely thank the highly professional, kind and committed workforce which we will all depend upon.

I welcomed the Government’s recent Green Paper on care and support, addressing how to place carers at the heart of discussions in order to build a long term, sustainable settlement for social care. Copeland is a particularly rural constituency, which faces its own distinct challenges when it comes to primary and secondary care, so it is encouraging that Government has stated its commitment to ensuring that rural areas are properly supported through its ongoing reforms and investments.

The Government has continued to invest in major service upgrades and care redesign plans at West Cumberland Hospital. Following the extensive £90m new-build programme, which created the new emergency floor, theatres and wards with single-bedded en-suite rooms, we also have phase two of the hospital’s refurbishment to look forward to - a major demolition, landscaping and reinstatement programme, estimated to cost £33m. Locally, the recruiting programme is working well with critical positions now being filled at WCH due to the willingness of health staff from far and wide helping to secure our vital services. My own daughter, Francesca will join this team at the very beginning of her career, as a nurse cadet student at Lakes College.

Also, this month; news that North Cumbria University Hospital Trust has been listening to patient and visitor comments and will be introducing pay-on-exit barriers at Carlisle Infirmary will come as a welcome relief to people in Copeland travelling to Carlisle for treatment as well as visiting family and friends. It is outrageous that patients and visitors to the hospital, many of whom will likely be grieving, have received substantial parking fines for often being only a few minutes late returning to their cars. This is a step in the right direction, but I would also like to see local authorities and those responsible for car parks in the area to review their current parking payment regulations and too, introduce pay-on-exit barriers, helping drivers to avoid unnecessary fines.