In this week's MP column, David Williams, MP for Stoke-on-Trent North and Kidsgrove, discusses social care in Stoke-on-Trent and urges locals to take part in the Big City Conversation.

In the last few weeks, my friend and fellow Stoke-on-Trent Labour MP, Dr Allison Gardner, has shone a spotlight on the pressure facing our NHS.

Speaking in Parliament, she spoke how ambulance handover delays have reached extreme levels at the Royal Stoke, with the longest recorded wait exceeding 17 hours before a patient could be formally transferred from ambulance crews to hospital staff.

Only 16 per cent of ambulance handovers met the 15-minute standard, making it the worst-performing hospital in the West Midlands on this measure.

It's important to remember that this is a systems problem and is not caused by the hard-working and dedicated staff who keep our hospital running and care for us when we need them the most.

Allison is right to raise it. But this problem isn't unique to one hospital or one constituency. It's happening right across the country, after years of pressure on the NHS that have left patients and staff in a really difficult position.

Patients who are well enough to go home can't be moved on, so beds stay full. And when they are discharged, the social care support often isn't there, leaving them with nowhere to go.

Ambulances queue outside because the wards are full, and the wards are full because the care isn't there. It's a vicious cycle of delays and disappointment.

Social care is often called the forgotten part of our health system, even though it looks after many of our most vulnerable friends and loved ones.

This Labour Government is determined that it won't be forgotten any longer. Our Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, understands that. He has spoken at length about building a care system that works for the future, and about the long-term answer an ageing population needs.

In my last column, I wrote about the Prime Minister's promise to tackle this. He said he might pay a political price for it, but that it was something he had to do. I back him on that.

Recently, my team met social care students from Staffordshire University, the people who will be caring for our families in the years to come.

One thing that really stood out was how powerless many of them felt. Several told us it didn't matter how they voted or what they did, because nobody would listen.

Yet they had clear ideas about how social care could be better. They just needed someone to hear them.

That's why I'd urge everyone to take part in the Big City Conversation. Stoke-on-Trent City Council has launched it to help shape the Adult Social Care Strategy through to 2030.

It's a chance for residents, carers and the people who work in care to share their experiences and ideas about how care should be delivered in the years ahead.

To complete the online survey, visit the website here.

This issue is personal to many families, including my own.

A couple of weeks ago my dad was taken into hospital, and he's very poorly. Like a lot of families in Stoke-on-Trent and Kidsgrove, we're now waiting to find out what happens when he's well enough to come home, and whether the care he needs will be there for him.

If it isn't, it will be down to my sisters and me, and to Mum, who isn't getting any younger herself. We'll do whatever he needs, because that's what families do. But no family should have to face that on their own.

Labour built the NHS after the Second World War because people deserved better.

After a pandemic that hit our older and most vulnerable people hardest, it's on Labour again to build a National Care Service worthy of them.

Everyone agrees that change is needed, but we have to be honest: it won't happen overnight. More than a decade of staff shortages and underinvestment can't be undone quickly.

But my commitment is simple. I'll keep pushing for the investment, reform and accountability we need, so that health and care work for everyone in Stoke-on-Trent and Kidsgrove, and so that no family is left to face it alone.