#NHSCrisis: BBC(!) reports what Theresa May and Jeremy Hunt are hiding. Now let’s see them resign
He can run, but he can’t hide: Jeremy Hunt tries to escape a news reporter as she demands answers about the deepening crisis in the NHS – a crisis he has caused [Image: Sky News].
So, “Theresa May, the Prime Minister, didn’t want any of this to get out”:
- That the average ambulance wait is currently 40 minutes at a major NHS trust in the north of England;
- That a man who had a heart attack waited five hours on a trolley for treatment;
- That patients had been shut out of the hospital;
- That cancer treatments might have to be cancelled because low staffing made them unsafe;
- That nursing staff had expressed concern to their unions about unsafe working practices;
- That calls on the 999 emergency number may be a waste of effort.
The last point is particularly corrosive; the 999 emergency number has been a quality standard that British people have considered almost sacred since it was introduced, and now the Conservatives have rendered it useless.
And people are still being left to die on trolleys in corridors.
No wonder Theresa May – the prime minister of the United Kingdom, don’t forget – wanted to stop the public from finding out about this.
But it seems the BBC is now well and truly on the case. Having failed to kill this story over the weekend, the Corporation seems to have decided it may as well jump in with both feet, so we got the following:
Record numbers of patients are facing long waits in A&Es as documents leaked to the BBC show the full extent of the winter crisis in the NHS in England.
Nearly a quarter of patients waited longer than four hours in A&E last week, with just one hospital hitting its target.
And huge numbers also faced long waits for a bed when A&E staff admitted them into hospital as emergency cases.
There were more than 18,000 “trolley waits” of four hours or more last week.
18 thousand trolley waits of four hours or more. Wasn’t Jeremy Hunt saying there were only a “handful” of these, only yesterday?
And where was Mr Hunt, exactly?
He was filmed running away from a TV news reporter – and embarrassingly having to U-turn after heading off in the wrong direction.
After making a speech to the King’s Fund think tank, in central London, he was chased by Sky News reporter Beth Rigby, who asked him whether he was scrapping four-hour waiting times or just watering them down (to include only patients he describes as being in genuine need of A&E treatment).
He refused to answer her questions, but had to double back, as he searched for his expensive chauffeur-driven ministerial car.
It is clear that the Conservatives have no answer to the facts that are being revealed.
They are also refusing – mark that word: refusing – to do anything at all about the crisis other than to deny its existence, try to redefine national standards so they conform with that denial, and run away from the facts while people continue to suffer.
In the past, health secretaries would have resigned long before any situation reached this point.
In fact, given the magnitude of the disaster, prime ministers would have resigned as well.
Isn’t it time we told Mr Hunt and Mrs May that their services are no longer needed?
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The government are destroying live of the people they should respect and support but then again they are tories.
But Mike, the people have spoken; they want Brexit.
That means that there is no money for things like the NHS: we have to spend it all on ambassadors, bureaucrats and bailouts.
It is what the people wanted you cannot blame the Former Home Secretary…
Ha ha.
If the Tory Government do not rectify their deliberate defunding of the NHS, the desired result will not be the end of the NHS but the end of the Tories and possibly their victims lives.
its ready for the sell off unum salivating at this
Theresa May and Jeremy Hunt are to thick to bother we need them out ASAP
I still believe they are running it down so they will have no choice to privatise it we need to get them out now.
Hunt should have gone years ago as a minister for health he is a disaster. One can only surmise he is leading the privatise the NHS campaign form the tories.
Virgin and Mr May and American corporations are waiting in the wings…..
Maybe the BBC now realise with the appointment of their new privatisation Zsar
they are now truly a target despite their best efforts to cosy up to the Cons. Perhaps if they become an Institution that can be trusted by the Public the Public would have a lot more respect for them and want to save them when the sale signs go up. If they are sold on under this Trojan horse privateer they should cease immediately producing licences and costs on the public for what would just become a Tory propaganda machine….just like the US media has become.
I’m in violent agreement with all of the above, but you might want to modify your wording so that your opponents can’t use the inaccuracy against you: you’ve said cancer treatments were cancelled, whereas the quote only says that they considered cancelling treatments.
Fair enough.
This has caught me just after getting back from an NHSS appointment, breaking open the fizz to celebrate their efficiency. My sight in one eye had gone downhill drastically over Christmas so I went to my GP on Monday afternoon. They refderred me to my local hospital’s eye centre where I was given an appointment for today, less that 2 days later. I turned up expecting an eye test and a wait of some weeks before treatment. I was looked at and the consultant decided the eye needed laser treatment. Rather than being put in a queue for the scheduled laser clinic, he asked if I would like it to be done there and then. 40 mins after arriving at the hospital I was offski, being able to read the number plates of the cars in front for the first time in months.
Please someone save the English NHS from Hunt the **** and hopefully it will return to these standards that we knew and loved..
That would be NHS Scotland, I take it?
Mrs Mike gets similar treatment in NHS Wales (although not for the same health issue).
I’m glad you received such terrific service…
And it really does show up Mr Hunt for what he has done in England.
I first contacted my GP re. an eye problem in spring 2015. I finally got seen in July 2016. The eye hospital then said they would refer me to a neurologist. I then collapsed in the street in July, was sent to the cardiologist who said I needed to see a neurologist. The referral didnt happen. I kept ringing the hospital who, each time, apologised profusely and said the referral would be done. But it wasn’t. had to go to my own GP to organise a brain scan and to refer me to a neurologist.
Meanwhile my brother with a malignant aggressive brain tumour had his critical operation cancelled twice. The second time the consultant was so concerned that he went on and did the operation anyway, against the instructions of hospital management.
This is the situation in the South East.
No chance, the BBC will only go so far before the Tory knife is held against their throat and they fall into line