STROUD'S new Labour MP Simon Opher says he got into politics to make the world a fairer place after realising poverty was the main driver for many people’s ill health.

More than 25,000 people backed the Dursley GP to become Stroud MP in the general election on July 4.

The Oxfordshire-born GP’s main focus will be reducing inequality in the country as way to improve people’s health.

The 60-year-old says statistics in Stroud show how people’s life expectancy changes dramatically depending on where they live in the constituency.

Dr Opher, who has lived and worked in Dursley for almost 30 years, wanted to become a GP from a very early age.

“From the age of 13, I was very keen on that,” he said.

“I worked towards that at school and then went to St Mary’s Hospital Medical School in Paddington to study. I was there for five years.

“I liked science and was good at science but wanted to have a way of using it which was more holistic and humanistic.

“I’ve never regretted it. I lived around the country for a bit, Cornwall, the Lake District and Worcester before moving to Dursley in 1995.”

He said he was attracted to the area because he likes the countryside but the actual GP job was quite unusual at the time.

“It was quite an unusual GP job. He sent his CV and said if you like the look of it apply, if not don’t bother.

“In the end 48 of us applied for the job. Those were the halcyon days of general practice.”

Dr Opher was struck by the community spirit he found in Dursley and is a great believer in its benefits.

“It was almost old fashioned how people would look after each other,” he said. “There was a lovely sense of community which I really noticed.

“It’s essential. Being socially isolated is incredibly bad for your health. That’s what happened as I started working.

“A lot of the problems I came across didn’t need medicine to deal with them but a different approach. That’s when I started to develop schemes around social prescribing. Particularly the arts.

“I got an artist in residence for the surgery. So instead of sending them for mental health treatment they would go and see the artist.

“That was a way of both being creative and breaking their isolation. You realised that the main determinant for health was not medical. They were social, poverty, isolation and lack of education really.

“All those things led to people having worse health outcomes.”

Dr Opher believes the health of a nation almost entirely reflects its levels of inequality.

And he is irritated by people who claim the NHS is rubbish. He believes poor health outcomes are primarily down to poverty and all the consequences that entails for people.

“The more unequal the country is, the more ill health you get. The best way to improve health in this country is to make it more equal.

“It’s not to make the NHS better, it’s to bring more people out of poverty.

“One of the things that irritates me is people saying the NHS is rubbish because you get worse cancer outcomes, you get earlier death, worse outcomes in respiratory disease. That’s all related to poverty and inequality, it’s not related to the NHS.

“[Wealthier people] just get less ill. The best way to improve health is to make people more equal. So, I realised no matter what I was doing as a doctor, you need to change the whole system.

“My whole idea around getting into politics was to make the world a fairer place.

“In our constituency, depending on where you live, your life expectancy could be ten years lower than in another area, simply because of your rates of poverty.

“Inequality leads to obesity, more likelihood of smoking and alcohol consumption.  The main driver is poverty.”

Dr remains a GP at his May Lane surgery in Dursley but with reduced appointments due to his position as MP.

He says his main focus as MP will be Stroud but he wants to influence national government policy.

“I very much doubt I will ever make a minister, that’s not the reason I’m doing it. A champion for patients and primary care to get a decent quality.”

He said watching the NHS “go down and down” was another reason he decided to become an MP.

“It’s a brilliant service. It’s cheap, fair and effective. We mustn’t let it fail.”