Heidi Alexander: “Failure has become the norm” for the NHS under the Tories

Tory health policies are “failing patients”, Heidi Alexander has said following the release of new data which shows the NHS has failed to meet almost every performance target.

NHS England has failed to meet targets for both emergency and elective care. There has been a greater need for both types of care since last year, with the data measuring the highest amount of 111 calls being referred to A&E ever.

Labour’s Shadow Health Secretary has criticised the deep cuts that has resulted in a “crisis of their own making”.

“They cut older people’s home care, meaning hospitals have become dangerously full, and cuts to nurse training places have forced hospitals to drain resources hiring expensive agency staff.”

Alexander argued that the Tories’ would worsen the problems:

“Rather than take action to repair the damage they’ve done, Tory Ministers are taking a huge gamble with the future of our NHS. They’ve got no plan to tackle the financial crisis facing hospitals, and no plan to address the funding black hole in social care.”

Only 69.9 per cent of the most serious ambulance calls were responded to within eight minutes, with a target of 75 per cent. 

216,287 patients waited for more than 4 hours in A&E, with the NHS missing it’s 95 per cent target by 6.3 percentage points.

This comes as junior doctors went on strike again yesterday, this time for 48 hours, to protest the imposition of new contracts from Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt. The BMA says it will be launching a legal challenge against the Health Secretary’s decision. Two more strikes are planned for April.