This will mean more and more patients waiting longer and longer in pain, discomfort and distress for elective operations – Jonathan Ashworth

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.”

Ends