Woman challenges Rishi Sunak over state of the NHS

Rishi Sunak has been challenged about the state of the NHS in an awkward encounter with a woman during a visit to Winchester in the south of England.

In a clip filmed by Sky News, a member of the public urged Mr Sunak to take the NHS “back to how it used to be”.

He began to walk away as she told him her daughter spent “seven hours waiting”.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said it showed the PM didn’t “understand what so many people are going through”.

In the exchange, Mr Sunak said he was “sorry to hear” about the woman’s problems and defended his government’s actions on the NHS.

He said waiting lists had fallen in October and November of last year – two months when there were “virtually no strikes”.

“It just shows when there aren’t strikes we really can make progress. We didn’t last year because of all the strikes.”

The disgruntled woman – reported by Sky News to be a former NHS worker – replied that Mr Sunak could “stop it all”. She also pleaded with him not to relocate Winchester’s accident and emergency department to Basingstoke.

Under plans announced last year, the accident and emergency department in Winchester is set to be closed, with a new acute specialist hospital, costing £900m, to be built in Basingstoke.

At one point Mr Sunak laughs at a comment from the crowd and the exchange ends with the pair shaking hands.

Mr Sunak continues his tour of Winchester, a seat the Conservatives hold, but with a tiny majority over the Lib Dems.

Responding to the clip, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said it “further reinforces I think what many people across the country think – that this prime minister doesn’t talk to people, doesn’t engage, doesn’t understand, what so many people are going through”.

He added: “We have a terrible problem with our waiting lists and that is why we have been really clear that we would get rid of the non-dom tax status where the super-rich don’t pay their tax in this country and use that to bring down those waiting lists.

“We have got a plan, we engage with people over our plan, we don’t laugh and walk away.”

Liberal Democrat MP Christine Jardine said: “Out of touch does not even begin to describe Rishi Sunak’s attitude to the NHS”.

At the start of 2023, Mr Sunak made cutting NHS waiting lists in England one of his five key priorities.

The overall number of waits for non-emergency treatment in England was 7.6 million in November. This represented a fall from October of about 96,000, but around 400,000 higher than it was at the start of 2023.

Mr Sunak has previously argued that he could have met his target if NHS workers had not gone on strike.

The Health Foundation think tank has said that industrial action by consultants and junior doctors only lengthened the waiting list by around 210,000.

Last week, the BBC reported that most key NHS had been missed for at least seven years across the UK.