Since my election, I have been working with local NHS leaders to press the case for better healthcare closer to home.

Haslemere Hospital is set to become a new neighbourhood health centre, having already benefited from an upgraded Urgent Treatment Centre and a further £1 million for improvements. Its success, along with that of our other local hospitals, shows why the Government should prioritise giving people access to more healthcare without travelling to larger hospitals.

I want to see that approach extended across our area. I have made the case directly to the Department of Health and Social Care that Farnham and Whitehill & Bordon should be next in line to develop neighbourhood health centres, giving local residents faster access to the services they need.

At the same time, I am spending hours each week serving on the Bill Committee scrutinising the Government's 191-page Health Bill line by line. It may sound like Westminster procedure, but the decisions made there will shape healthcare in our area for years to come.

One issue has particularly concerned me.

In March alone, 351,000 patients were removed from NHS waiting lists. Some will rightly have completed treatment or no longer needed it. However, I have since heard from patients across the country – including elderly and vulnerable people – who found they had simply disappeared from the system after waiting months or even years.

That is why I have been pressing ministers to publish not only the number of patients leaving waiting lists, but the reasons why. If patients are being removed appropriately, greater transparency will strengthen public confidence. If they are not, we need to know.

I have also challenged proposals that risk moving decisions further away from the communities they affect. The Government says it wants more local decision-making, yet the Bill removes guaranteed representation for GPs, local councils and NHS trusts from the bodies responsible for making important decisions about local healthcare. At the same time, more powers are being concentrated in Whitehall.

Good healthcare works best when local knowledge helps shape local services.

I also remain concerned about how Labour is handling the wider challenges facing the NHS.

Doctors deserve to be paid fairly, but the cycle of industrial disputes followed by inflation-busting pay rises cannot become the new normal. Evidence presented to Parliament has shown how previous strike action disrupted tens of thousands of appointments and placed even greater, unfunded pressure on NHS finances. Every cancelled operation means another local family left waiting.

Healthcare is rarely improved by headlines or another organisational reshuffle. It improves when patients can trust the system, when decisions are transparent, and when more care is available closer to where people live.

Whether you live in Farnham, Haslemere, Whitehill & Bordon or Liphook, that is the test I will continue to apply to every proposal that comes before Parliament: not whether it creates another NHS structure, but whether it makes it easier for local people to get the care they need, when they need it.

Gregory Stafford MP