Rishi Sunak on Monday defended his plan to tackle the crisis in NHS urgent and emergency care, insisting it would deliver “the largest and fastest-ever improvement in emergency waiting times in the NHS’s history”.
Speaking at a hospital in Darlington, the prime minister responded to criticism that the blueprint aspired only to reduce ambulance response times to 30 minutes for category two call-outs, which can include suspected heart attacks and strokes, despite the official NHS target being 18 minutes.
Noting the pressures on the health service caused by the worst winter for flu for about a decade, Sunak said the government would work towards restoring response times to pre-pandemic levels “after next year”.
The plan includes the promise of 800 more ambulances and 5,000 hospital beds and is supported by £1bn in funding allocated in the Autumn Statement.
Sunak suggested that when January data were released, they might show an improvement in response times. “The things that we’re already doing, I think you’ll see made a difference in January,” he said, citing measures to make it easier for hospitals to discharge people.
Asked by hospital staff on whether he would raise pay levels, over which millions of nurses and ambulance workers are taking industrial action, he said that overall the health expenditure pie was “as big as it’s ever been” but “we’ve got to figure out what’s the right balance between pay and all these other things that we have to do and it’s not an easy thing to get right”.
The prime minister added: “I don’t want to put any of your taxes up. That’s what it comes down to . . . I think we’re kind of where we are with taxes at the moment. We can’t put them up any more.”