WATCH: Starmer pays tribute to NHS in Labour party election broadcast

Keir Starmer has paid tribute to the “deep, deep sense of public service” among NHS workers and shared his personal reasons for being “grateful” to the NHS in Labour’s party political broadcast ahead of elections on May 6th.

“I don’t find it particularly easy talking about the difficulties my mum faced,” the Labour leader tweeted. He explains in the video that his mother was a nurse but also very ill herself with a rare autoimmune disease.

“As she got more and more ill, the NHS, which she’d served and loved as a nurse, suddenly became her lifeline. I remember as a boy, teenager, being in high dependency units, in intensive care units with my mum.

“Watching nurses and other support staff keep my mum alive. For them, it was just the day job, they were doing that every day. It’s very personal, I’m very grateful for the NHS and my mum was very grateful,” he said.

Starmer promised to “tackle waiting lists, pay our NHS heroes a decent wage and ensure that our children get the mental health support that they need”, as well as “end the scandal of a social care system that’s been left broken”.