Today Lib Dem Conference debated health and social care and passed an 11 point plan to deal with the crisis the NHS faces.

The debate was unsurprisingly one of the most heavily subscribed at Conference.

Regular readers will know that Leicestershire Lib Dem Mathew Hulbert’s lovely mum Jackie passed away in 2022 two days after an eleven hour wait for an ambulance.

He had written a speech for the debate today but was one of many who were not called.

He sent us his speech and you can read it below.

“When is help going to come?”

That is what my dear 78-year old mother Jackie pleaded with me, as she lay on her bedroom floor following a bad fall at home on July 10th 2022.

She’d fallen on her way to the bathroom in the early hours.

Having fallen before, she had an alarm that she pressed which alerted the Council.

I was phoned.

And me and my friend Stuart, Lib Dem leader of Hinckley and Bosworth Borough Council, got to her.

She said she’d hurt her ribs, so we didn’t move her.

Stuart called for an ambulance at 5.01am.

At 4pm, eleven hours later, a paramedic finally arrived.

Mum was taken to hospital, where she died two days later after an infection turned to sepsis.

My mum deserved better than eleven agonising, painful, distressing, undignified hours on her bedroom floor waiting for help to come.

I’ll never forget those eleven hours.

Seeing the person I loved most in the world in such pain, in such distress.

Why had it happened?

I later discovered that ambulances were backed up outside a local hospital, unable to offload their patients because there were people in the hospital, well enough to come home but who couldn’t because they didn’t have a care package at home or in the community.

My mum suffered because of a system that was totally broken after ten plus years years of Conservative underfunding, mismanagement and privatisation.

I’ll never forgive the Tories for how they left our NHS to rot.

Since mum’s death I’ve committed much of my time to campaigning for a better NHS and for improved ambulance response times.

That campaigning, thanks to the wonderful campaign group Just Treatment, has taken me to 10 Downing Street, on to the national and international broadcast airwaves, and to Parliament where I met with our fantastic Deputy Leader and Health Spokesperson Daisy Cooper and other decision makers.

I have faith in Daisy and our brilliant 71 other Lib Dem MPs that they will push this new Labour government to invest more in our health service and to finally sort out social care.

In closing, I’d like to thank my Lib Dem family for being there for me over these past two very difficult years since my mum’s death.

I don’t think I could have made it through without you.

I’ll keep speaking out until something is done to ensure more families aren’t failed like mine was.

My Mum would expect nothing less.

* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings