Access to health care has improved around the country, and in my Swindon constituency. Local plans are under way to improve it still further. The hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr. Lansley) has once again shown a fondness for picking isolated cases and testimonies, then manipulating and exaggerating them. For example, he mentioned the reorganisation of NHS Direct, and criticised the Government in a sweeping statement for reducing the number of call centres. In fact, that was a patient-led change. People’s habits change, medicine changes and organisations change over time. NHS Direct was reorganised because more people were using the web service, and fewer people were using the telephone service. It was rightly reorganised because people’s habits and demands had changed, and the hon. Gentleman should pay attention to that. His criticisms, both today and in previous Opposition day debates, are empty, and they do not add up to an holistic health policy.

Fay Howard, a councillor and a nurse in my constituency, works at the Great Western hospital, which was built by Labour and opened in 2003. She is part of an NHS team treating more patients more quickly with better outcomes and higher patient satisfaction every year in Swindon. Apart from better access to GPs, accident and emergency services, and emergency care, Fay thinks that Labour’s programme of delivering care at home is crucial, and she gave me powerful anecdotal evidence:

Things have changed, because health care has changed and people’s expectations have changed. My constituents expect the best: they also expect choice and appropriate treatment in the most appropriate place, whether that is in a hospital, a GP’s surgery or at home.

On a local level, front-line staff in Swindon are innovating to improve access, and I pay tribute to their hard work and dedication. The Government need to acknowledge that more: we must tell our NHS staff that they are doing a fantastic job, and listen to their views of the improvements and changes that we need to make. Swindon and Marlborough NHS trust is considering setting up a birthing centre to allow women with uncomplicated pregnancies to give birth in a homely environment, cared for by the midwifery team. That obviously improves access, but it also improves patient choice. Our sexual health clinic has developed a patient numbering system to protect anonymity, which encourages people to seek help. It also uses mobile text messaging for patients, which keeps the service anonymous so people return, which is crucial.

The cardiology department launched a new service in May for heart patients who need angioplasties. It carries out procedures under local anaesthetic on 100 patients a year who would otherwise have to travel 50 miles to Bristol. Our radiography waiting times are among the lowest in the country. There is a filmless radiography department—it is all digital. If people transfer to Bristol, their X-ray can be e-mailed to the doctor, which means that there is no waiting. I am pleased that my local health service is listening to patient feedback. People wanted the audiology clinic to extend its opening times; it has done so, and likewise the booking centre. We have been helped by the Department of Health. Last month, it published progress on the 18-week target and everyone in my community was concerned that Swindon was low on the list. I am pleased that an action plan is in place, and that there will be regular consultations with MPs. I hope that the new health team will continue that excellent initiative, because we need to know how well our health service is doing.

As well as acute care, primary care services have provided better access to patients in Swindon. Our walk-in clinic is a local success story, and constituents tell me that it is a great improvement on waiting to see a GP or going to accident and emergency. They have also praised increased pre-emptive care initiatives such as the falls clinic, which helps the elderly both to deal with falls and to prevent them at home, and the Alzheimer’s clinic, which has become well known in Swindon under the leadership of Dr. Bullock. There is therefore increased access, choice and patient satisfaction. From next week, a new Government initiative—the telehealth initiative—goes live in Swindon. It will provide specialist monitoring equipment at home for people with respiratory disease, and is another measure that brings health care closer to home. It is a Labour initiative, and we are proud of it. It helps to explain why, throughout the country, we have 98 per cent. satisfaction rates among patients using the national health service —[ Interruption. ] The Opposition are heckling me, because they do not want to hear that 98 per cent. of people who use the health service, whether in a Tory, Liberal Democrat or Labour constituency, are satisfied with it. Patients love our local NHS, but they often tell me that the reports they read in the paper suggest that their experience is not the norm. Even though I am biased when it comes to Swindon; I can confirm from my time on the Government’s health team that the NHS is good and improving all over the country, as I am sure we will hear from colleagues.

We in Swindon remember the national headlines about lack of access: 60,000 general and acute beds were lost, waiting lists rose by 400,000, and the total number of hospitals went down under the Tories. They closed our local hospital—the Princess Alexandra—and let our other hospital go to rack and ruin. Then, as now, the Opposition had no proper strategy for increasing access. It has been my dubious pleasure to listen to every health Opposition day debate for the past 18 months. I have been proud to be on the front line since 2005. The new Parliamentary Private Secretaries, along with other Labour Members, will defend the improvements against the mud slinging from the Opposition.