Rishi Sunak has been confronted over NHS waiting lists as he started his charm offensive the day after his surprise General Election announcement.
The PM admitted he hasn’t made the progress he hoped to after Mick Shergold said he’d been waiting 12 weeks for a scan, while his wife had endured a three year delay. Mr Shergold, 68, said he was concerned that “nothing’s being done”.
Latest figures from the British Medical Association show 7.54 million cases of people waiting for treatment in March, affecting over 6.5million patients. The PM was challenged as he fielded questions from staff at a distribution centre in Derbyshire after firing the starting gun ahead of the July 4 vote.
Supervisor Mr Shergold told him: “I’ve got personal issues with the NHS and I’m just concerned that nothing’s being done. I’ve been waiting 12 weeks for a prostrate scan and my wife as well waiting for a scan, she’s been waiting for three years.”
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Mr Sunak responded: “The area where I wish I’d made more progress is with waiting lists. A priority of mine is to cut waiting lists and we haven’t made as much progress as I would have liked, I have to be honest about that.”
He then went on to blame strikes by NHS workers for the failure. Patients were hit by months of deadlock after the Government delayed putting forward acceptable pay deals. The PM said: “They (waiting lists) are starting to come down, down by 200,000 over the last few months. And the NHS said – not me – they said that if we hadn’t had all the strikes they would have come by almost half a million.”
Mr Sunak admitted this doesn’t help Mr Shergold and his wife, but said the rollout of community diagnostic centres across the country would bring down waiting times for scans. He also said work was being done to train more doctors.
“With the best will in the world I probably won’t be Prime Minister in 15 years time, which is how long it takes to train one of these consultants,” he said. “We’ve been relying on having to import people from abroad because it’s right we should train people here at home.”
He said: “It’s right even if I’m not going to be around to see the benefits of it.” And he told Mr Shergold: “I’m going to work damn hard to get you and your wife the treatment you need.”
Mr Shergold told The Mirror: “I’ve got personal issues with the NHS and it is worrying for me and my family. I’ve got a sister-in-law who’s been diagnosed with breast cancer and it took seven weeks before she even got a scan.
“It’s just wait, wait, wait, wait, you cannot get in to see your doctor.” Despite his concerns about the NHS, however, he said he would be supporting the Tories and was convinced by what he heard from Mr Sunak.
He said he believes immigration will be the central issue in the General Election. “How many people can you put on one island? What he’s doing with Rwanda, I think it’s brilliant.” He said he’s voted for Labour in the past but can’t get behind Keir Starmer now.