Anger as Theresa May tells the Government's NHS critics: Nothing's perfect
3 min read
Theresa May has been criticised after she responded to criticism of the Government's handling of the NHS winter crisis by declaring: "Nothing's perfect."
Ministers have come under fire after more than 50,000 operations had to be cancelled as medics try to cope with a surge in demand.
Appearing on the Andrew Marr Show, Mrs May again insisted that "the NHS has actually been better prepared for these winter pressures than it has been before".
But Marr - who had a massive stroke five years ago - highlighted the case of an elderly woman who had to wait five hours before seeing a doctor after suffering a similar attack.
"If I'd been waiting for five hours before seeing a doctor after my stroke, I would not be here talking to you," he said. "This is about life and death and up and down the country people are having horrendous experiences of the NHS, whether you say there is a plan or not."
Mrs May - who last week apologised to those affected by the cancelled operations - said: "Obviously you've raised an individual case with me which I haven't seen the details of and I recognise that people have concerns if they have experience of that sort.
"If we look at what is happening across the NHS what we see is actually the NHS is delivering for more people, it is treating more people and more people are being seen within the four hours every day than has been a few years ago.
"But of course, nothing's perfect, and there is more for us to do. We have planned for the winter pressures this year we put some more money in and there has been planning and hospitals have been dealing with it in different ways."
The Prime Minister added: "If you look across the NHS experience is different from hospital to hospital as to what is happening. There are some hospitals where very few operations have been cancelled.
"What we need to do is to ensure that in addition to the work we're doing, putting extra funding into the NHS, that we are working to see where it is the case hospitals are coping better than others, what is it that's enabled them to do that, what can we learn from this for the future."
But Shadow Health Secretary Jon Ashworth hit out at Mrs May's remarks.
He said: "Yet again Theresa May has shown utter disregard for those patients languishing on trolleys, delayed in ambulances in the freezing cold weather or forced to wait longer in pain and anxiety because their operation has been cancelled.
"A real apology would be backed up by real action. Instead all we get is a plan to promote the Health Secretary who has overseen this crisis. Promoting the Health Secretary would be a betrayal of patients who deserve better this winter."
PoliticsHome Newsletters
PoliticsHome provides the most comprehensive coverage of UK politics anywhere on the web, offering high quality original reporting and analysis: Subscribe
