labourpress:

Jonathan Ashworth MP, Labour’s Shadow Health Secretary, responding to NHS England’s Board Meeting confirming waiting times standards will not be met next year, said:

“NHS England’s unprecedented confirmation that NHS constitution waiting times standards ‘will not be fully funded and met next year’ is the direct result of Philip Hammond’s failure to give the NHS the funding it needed in the recent Budget.

“Today NHS bosses have effectively conceded that the 18 week target for treatment can’t be met given continued underfunding of the NHS.

“This will mean more and more patients waiting longer and longer in pain, discomfort and distress for elective operations. This is the real debilitating impact on patients’ quality of life as a result of Tory austerity.

“What’s more, there are serious questions about the legality of effectively abandoning a standard of care enshrined in the NHS constitution. As a matter of urgency Jeremy Hunt must now tell us whether he intends to amend the law and the NHS Constitution through legislation and publicly accept his Government’s funding squeeze is jeopardizing legally guaranteed standards of patient care.”

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