Rishi Sunak has admitted he has failed to deliver on his promise to cut healthcare waiting lists.
The Prime Minister made this one of the key commitments against which his own competence would be judged upon taking office. But as the situation in England actually worsened through many measures, the great promise was downgraded late last year, before Sunak acknowledged the failure on Monday.
“We haven’t made enough progress,” Sunak said when asked about his commitment to reducing NHS waiting lists during an interview with Piers Morgan on TalkTV. Asked whether that meant he had failed, the Prime Minister replied: “Yes, we did.”
Labour’s shadow health secretary, Wes Streeting, said: “Rishi Sunak has finally admitted what has been abundantly clear to everyone for years: the Conservatives have failed on the NHS.
“Where Sunak failed, Labor will succeed in getting the NHS back on its feet. We’ve done it before and we’ll do it again. We will reduce waiting lists with an additional 2 million evening and weekend appointments, paid for by abolishing non-domestic tax status.”
In October it emerged that the number of people waiting longer than 18 months for NHS treatment in England is growing. Data analyzed by news agency PA Media last month showed that despite the recent drop in the waiting list in England, it was still higher than when Sunak’s promise was made.
The list amounted to 7.21 million open treatments in January 2023. In November, NHS England figures showed 7.61 million treatments still needed to be carried out.
NHS workers, many of whom have seen substantial pay cuts in real terms under Conservative governments, have exercised their right to take industrial action to secure better conditions.
Unions have consistently said ministers can avoid strikes by offering better pay deals. And government ministers have privately acknowledged that they would eventually have to do so, despite publicly insisting for months that they would not take such a step.
Health leaders warned Sunak in December that continuing the industrial dispute would make fulfilling his promise virtually impossible. Nevertheless, Sunak tried to blame the striking workers for his failure.
When Sunak was asked by TalkTV on Monday about the increased waiting lists in England, he replied: “Yes, and we all know the reasons for that. And what I would say to people is: look, we have invested record amounts of money in the NHS: more doctors, more nurses, more scanners. All these things mean that the NHS is doing more today than ever before. But industrial action has had an impact.”
Morgan also told Sunak about his 79-year-old mother’s experience of NHS care three months ago after she suffered a heart attack. The broadcaster said that despite being driven to hospital in an ambulance, his mother waited on a trolley in an emergency corridor for almost seven hours before she was seen, in a scene she likened to a “war zone”.
The Prime Minister said the story was “shocking” and that performance in emergency departments and ambulance waiting times was “not good enough”.
However, he denied that the Tories had failed the NHS since 2010, citing the backlog created by the coronavirus pandemic. “We cannot escape that. When you shut down the country within the NHS for the best part of two years, it has had an impact on everything since then. And we just have to face that reality,” he said.
Also during the interview, Sunak accepted a £1,000 bet with Morgan that deportation flights to Rwanda would take place before the next general election, expected in the autumn.
He has previously set a target of sending people arriving in Britain via unauthorized routes, including those crossing the Channel in small boats, to the east African country by spring.
Britain has paid Rwanda £240 million under Sunak’s plan to “stop the boats” – another of his top five pledges – and ministers expect to pay a further £50 million next year. But no one has been removed yet due to legal challenges that led to the High Court declaring the scheme illegal last year.
Sunak is trying to revive the policy by passing legislation that would consider Rwanda a safe country and ratifying a new treaty with Kigali. The Rwanda bill is making its way through the House of Lords.
After shaking hands with Morgan over the terms of the Rwanda bet, Sunak said: “I want to get people on board. I work very hard to get people on the planes.”
The full interview will air on the Piers Morgan Uncensored YouTube channel on Monday at 2pm and on TalkTV at 8pm.