, Labour's Shadow Health
Secretary, in response to Boris Johnson’s comments on
LBC this morning about the sick child forced to spend the night on
the floor of an A&E, said:
"It is pathetic and cowardly of to seek to deflect
responsibility for the crisis in our NHS which is highlighted so
powerfully by the appalling photo of a sick four year old boy
forced to spend the night on the floor of an A&E.
"This Tory government has spent 10 years in power cutting
staff and 17,000 beds to the point of this waiting times crisis,
and doctors are warning today that there are more people waiting
dangerously longer than 12 hours in A&E.
"There is only one way to save our NHS now and that's to
boot out of Downing Street on
Thursday and elect a Labour government that will rescue our
NHS."
Ends
Notes to editors
-
was speaking on Nick
Ferrari, LBC this morning. Transcript of
section:
Nick Ferrari: You’re not that far from Leeds where a 4
year-old boy spent the night on a hospital floor because there
were no beds available. And that of course, since the 2010 the
Conservatives have cut 15,000 hospital beds, Prime
Minister?
: Well we’ve also put 17,000
more nurses in but this is a new government with a new approach.
Since I’ve come in we’re putting the biggest ever amount into the
NHS, £34bn and we’re hiring 50,000 more nurses, and you and I
have been round those figures, we’re training 6,000 more GPs and
of course we must address the issues in A&E but it can only
be done once we’ve got things really motoring in parliament, in
government, and that means getting Brexit done.
Nick Ferrari: What would you say to the mother or the
family of this little lad who spent four and a half hours on a
hospital floor lying on blankets?
: Of course I sympathise very
much, and I apologise to everybody who has a bad experience. By
and large I think the NHS do an amazing job and I think they
deserve all praise for the service they provide. But they do need
investment and that’s why we’re doing it now.
