Corbyn and Ashworth: The NHS is always at the back of the queue for the Tories – Labour will stand up for the health service

Jeremy Corbyn and Jon Ashworth today launched a poster on Labour’s Care for the NHS campaign. The Labour leader said: 

“The Conservatives are failing our health service, which has been pushed into financial crisis and soaring deficits. Patients are facing longer waits, with hospitals overcrowded, understaffed and threatened with closure.

“Labour will stand up for the NHS. We will always make sure the NHS has the funding it needs and will join up services from home to hospital with a properly integrated health and social care service. Labour created the NHS to care for us all, now it’s time to care for the NHS. ”

Jon Ashworth, shadow health secretary, said:

“The Autumn Statement revealed that for the Tories, the NHS is always at the back of the queue. It’s jaw dropping that when the NHS is facing the biggest financial squeeze in its history – when waiting lists are at four million, when A&Es are in crisis – that the Autumn Statement contained not a single penny piece of extra investment for social care and the NHS.

“Instead the Conservatives have ignored the chorus of voices pleading for them to address the mess they’ve created in social care with cuts to budgets of £4.5 billion. The crisis in social care is such that thousands more older and disabled people face being left without access to services.”