TORY PM May hit out at the British Red Cross at Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs) in the House of Commons yesterday, describing its warnings of a ‘humanitarian crisis’ in the NHS as ‘irresponsible and overblown’.
Labour leader Corbyn accused May of being ‘in denial’ and ignoring medical experts, saying she ‘won’t listen to professionals’. Opening his questions by referring to the Red Cross warning of an NHS ‘humanitarian crisis’, Corbyn asked May: ‘Does she agree with him (health secretary Hunt) that the best way to solve the crisis of the four-hour wait is to fiddle the figures so that people are not seen to be waiting so long on trolleys in NHS hospitals?’
Pouring scorn on the Red Cross, May said: ‘We’ve all seen humanitarian crises around the world and to use that description on the NHS … is irresponsible and overblown.’
Corbyn said: ‘1.8 million people had to wait longer than four hours last year in A&E departments. She might not like what the Red Cross said, but on the same day the BMA said conditions in hospitals across the country are reaching a dangerous level, the Royal College of Nursing has said NHS conditions are the worst ever, the Royal College of Physicians has told the prime minister the NHS is underfunded, under-doctored and overstretched. If she won’t listen to the Red Cross, who will she listen to?’
‘Her government is proposing through the Sustainability and Transformation Plans (STPs) to cut one third of the beds in all of our hospitals in the very near future … Under this government there are six thousand fewer nurses working in mental health, four hundred fewer doctors working in mental health … The government has cut £4.6 billion from social care budgets. The King’s Fund says there is a social care funding gap of £2 billion almost this year … Our NHS is in crisis but the prime minister is in denial.’
Later in PMQs, in response to a question on NHS cuts and closures planned under the STPs, May claimed: ‘No final decisions have been taken. There will be substantial local involvement in all decisions.’
• Responding to comments made by the prime minister during PMQs about the crisis in the NHS, Dr Mark Porter, BMA council chair, said: ‘The government is wilfully ignoring the scale of the crisis in our NHS. Trying to play down the pressure that services are under shows the prime minister is out of touch with patients and frontline staff who are working flat out under impossible circumstances.
‘Theresa May says she wants a shared society that works for everyone but is in denial about one of the important issues facing our society today – how to secure the future of our health service, which is in a constant state of crisis.
‘Winter pressures are inevitable but we should be able to create a health service that can deal with the inevitable. To do this we need a government that takes the issue seriously, that addresses the funding, capacity and recruitment issues facing the NHS and social care year-in, year-out, but which are compounded during the winter months.’
