Keir Starmer vows to turbocharge NHS with night and weekend hospital clinics

Keir Starmer has vowed to instruct hospitals to set up evening and weekend clinics from day one of a Labour government – to smash NHS backlogs.

The Labour leader said he would send crack teams who are already running out-of-hours programmes across the country to help set up clinics as soon as possible. NHS waiting lists hit 7.5million in England in March – and Labour analysis suggests it could balloon further to 10million if the Tories win another term in office.

This is despite Rishi Sunak making slashing waiting lists one of his five pledges to voters in 2023. In his first newspaper interview of the General Election campaign, Mr Starmer said it was “unforgivable” that the Tories had run the NHS down over 14 years – and vowed to fix it.

He told the Mirror: “We’ve done it before and we’ll do it again. At the end of that exercise under the last Labour Government, satisfaction in the NHS was the highest it’s ever been.

“Tragically now it’s at the lowest, and for someone whose wife works in the NHS, whose mum worked in the NHS and relied on the NHS, it breaks my heart that they have so damaged our NHS that public satisfaction in something that people hold very dear in this country is at an all-time low.”

Labour has vowed to create 40,000 extra appointments, scans, and operations each week to slash the NHS backlog within five years. It would also double the number of scanners in a bid to diagnose patients earlier.

Mr Starmer said he was inspired by the work of staff at Guys and St Thomas’ Hospital, across the river from his Commons office, where staff run high-intensity theatre lists at weekend. This allows medics to do up to a week’s worth of procedures in specialities like orthopaedics or ear, nose, and throat in a single eight-hour shift.

Speaking on a campaign visit to Derby, the Labour leader said: “This has to be done with NHS staff, not to NHS staff, so we won’t do what this Government does and bash and blame NHS staff. We will work with them on this. The team at St Thomas’ that have already done this will be a crack team that we will use going across the country to work with us to set this up at speed.”

Labour would get cracking on this on its first day in office if Mr Starmer wins the keys to No10. He added: “Eight million is shocking. That means that for Mirror readers, almost everybody reading the Mirror or somebody in their family or friends, somebody they know will be on a waiting list. That is huge discomfort and pain and real harm.”

Mr Starmer said he was often approached by members of the public about the state of the NHS, describing a woman with an ingrown eyelid who approached him at a train station to say she’d been waiting 18 months for an operation – and now faced another year’s wait.

“That’s the human cost of this Government’s chaos and lack of grip on the NHS,” he said. He recalled the pride his mum had when she worked as a nurse, saying: “I understand that pride and that complete desire to deliver the best possible care to their patients and the complete frustration that NHS staff would be put in this position by the Government.”

Mr Starmer will bang the drum for Labour’s plans on a campaign visit to the West Midlands on Wednesday with Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting.

Starmer vows to act on vile online content

Labour would act quickly to protect children from harmful content online, Keir Starmer has said.

The Labour leader expressed alarm at some of the vile material youngsters are bombarded with by algorithms, which include posts on suicide and eating disorders. A poll for the Mirror found a majority of voters think social media firms should be forced to stop children seeing harmful content almost immediately.

The survey found 60% want this to happen by the end of July, while a further 22% said it should be before the end of this year. Only 2% were against it.

Asked about the findings, the dad-of-two told the Mirror: “It is a concern to me. Looking at some of the material that is available would shock, not only to any parent or carer but anybody who looked at these things reasonably and objectively.

“It does require us to work at pace with those that provide the platforms in terms of the content that is being provided. So yes, we would seek to get to grips with that very quickly if we’re privileged enough to come to serve.”

Rishi Sunak branded ‘tax risers’ tax riser’

Keir Starmer has branded Rishi Sunak the “tax risers’ tax riser” and demanded to know why anyone should believe Tory promises.

The Labour leader gave short shrift to the Conservative commitment to give a £2.4billion tax break to the 8 million working pensioners. The promised increase in the income tax personal allowance would be a cut of around £95 in 2025-26, rising to £275 in 2029-30, under the plans.

But Mr Starmer told the Mirror: “This is a government that has raised taxes more than any other government. We’ve got the highest tax burden since the war. They went into the last election promising they wouldn’t put taxes up, and they’ve put them up more than anybody else.

“And the person who has put them up is Rishi Sunak, as Chancellor and Prime Minister. He is the tax risers’ tax riser, the British expert on tax rises. So why would anyone believe them? It’s absolutely desperate stuff.”

Labour has committed to the pensions triple lock but has not backed the Tories plans.