With
polls opening in 24 hours, Labour is promising to breathe life back into the
NHS after years of the Conservatives starving it of funds, running down our
health workers and opening the door to full-scale privatisation.

Since
Theresa May became Prime Minister in 2016, almost two million people have
waited longer than four hours in A&E, almost 450,000 have waited longer
than four hours on trolleys and nearly 70,000 more people on waiting lists. The
Conservatives have no plan to support our NHS, with a manifesto that fails to
provide any additional funding for the NHS.

If
the Conservatives have five more years running our NHS, private provision of
healthcare in our NHS will balloon to £18.4 billion by 2021/22.

Labour
will restore the NHS to be the envy of the world by: 

• Giving the NHS an extra £37 billion over the course of
      the next Parliament, including £10 billion of capital funding for NHS
      buildings and IT systems.
• Taking one million people off NHS waiting lists by the
      end of the Parliament, by guaranteeing access to treatment within 18
      weeks.
• Guaranteeing patients can be seen in A&E within
      four hours.
• Creating a new £500 million Winter Pressures Fund to
      help ensure patients never have to experience a winter crisis like the one
      of recent months.
• Scrapping the public sector pay cap that has cut
      nurses’ pay by 14% in real terms since 2010, forcing some to need food
      banks to get by.

 Jeremy
Corbyn, Leader of the Labour Party said:

“The
Conservatives have spent the last seven years running down our NHS, our
proudest national institution. Our NHS cannot afford five more years of
underfunding, understaffing and privatisation.

“Labour
will give our NHS the resources it needs to deliver the best possible care for
patients, and end the Conservatives’ attacks on our hardworking health workers,
who care for us all.

“The
Conservatives have already cut our NHS, our schools, our police and our social
care services – and their manifesto is a plan for five more years of cuts to
services according to the IFS.

“We
have just 24 hours to change course and save our NHS, schools, social care and
police services by electing a Labour government that will invest to transform
Britain for the many, not the few.”

ENDS

Notes
to Editors

The
Conservatives have not given the NHS the money it needs

• In their 2015 manifesto the Tories said they would give the NHS £8 billion by
2020.

• “We will…spend at least an additional £8 billion by
      2020 over and above inflation to fund and support the NHS’s own action
      plan for the next five years.”
      Conservative Party Manifesto 2015,
      Page 37

• Theresa May initially claimed that the NHS had been
      given an extra £10 billion, which she said was more than it asked for.

“Simon Stevens was asked to come forward with
a five year plan for the NHS. He did that, so that’s been generated by the NHS
itself. He said that it needed £8bn extra – the government has not just given
him £8bn extra, we’ve given him £10bn extra.” Theresa May, Interview with
Manchester Evening News, 17 October 2016,
http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/theresa-came-manchester-asked-three-12039565

• However, she has been called out by Simon Stevens,
      Chief Executive of NHS England, who said it would be “stretching it” to
      say this.

“I think it would be stretching it to say
that the NHS has got more than it has asked for.” Simon Stevens,
Public Accounts Committee, Oral evidence: Financial Sustainability of the NHS,
11 January 2017,
http://data.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/committeeevidence.svc/evidencedocument/public-accounts-committee/the-financial-sustainability-of-the-nhs/oral/45122.html

• The House of Commons Health Select Committee has
      disputed the figures, putting the increase at £4.5 billion.

“If the spending review period is
considered—2015–16 to 2020–21—that increase is £4.5 billion.”

House of Commons, Health Select Committee
Report, Impact of the Spending Review on health and
social care, 19 July 2016 https://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201617/cmselect/cmhealth/139/13904.htm#_idTextAnchor008

5
more years of privatisation

• Around one third of NHS contracts since the 2012 Health
      and Social Care Act have gone to private sector providers

(Source: Iacobucci G (2014). A third of
NHS contracts awarded since health act have gone to private sector, BMA
investigation shows. BMJ 2014;349:g7606)

• At current growth rates, private provision of
      healthcare in NHS England will increase to £18.4bn by the end of 2021/22.
      Since the last full year of the previous Labour government, private
      provision of healthcare in NHS England has more than doubled, from £4.1bn
      in 2009/10 to £8.7bn in 2015/16

(Sources: House of Lords Answer to PQ
5389, 11 March 2015; DH Annual Report and Accounts, Table 10, p 40, 21 July 2016)

5
more years of cuts

• The Tories spending plans increase NHS spending by an
      average of 1.2 per cent per year between 2015/16 and 2022/23, compared
      with Labour’s spending plans that will increase NHS spending by an average
      of 2.3 per cent per year.

“The NHS needs an average of 1.2 per cent
to just keep pace with age-adjusted population growth, the Tories plans means
the NHS will get this, but nothing more.”

IFS, General Election 2017: IFS manifesto
analysis, 26 May 2017

• Under the Tories the UK would face the lowest period of
      spending increases in NHS history.

“A real increase of £8 billion over the
next five years would extend what is easily the lowest period of spending
increases in NHS history to 12 years”

IFS, General Election 2017: IFS manifesto
analysis, 26 May 2017

• This has resulted in the IFS saying that Conservative
      plans for the NHS may well be undeliverable.

“Conservative plans for NHS spending look
very tight indeed and may well be undeliverable.”

Institute for Fiscal Studies, Press
Release, 26 May 2017 – https://www.ifs.org.uk/publications/9259

• While the influential health charity, the King’s Fund
      says that cuts are having an impact on frontline care.

“The budget for NHS England is projected
to rise by more than £8 billion in real terms between 2015/16 and 2020/21,
technically meeting the manifesto commitment to fund the implementation of the
NHS five year forward view. However, the budget for the Department of Health –
the definition used by previous governments to measure health spending – will
increase by only £4.6 billion over this period. Cuts in areas of health
spending that have not been protected are having an impact on frontline care.”

The King’s Fund, 12 May 2017, https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/publications/articles/government-pledge-nhs-funding 

Funding

• Funding for Labour’s New Deal for NHS Patients will be
      met from Income Tax on the top five per cent of earners with additional
      funding from Corporation Tax, higher rate insurance premium tax on private
      medical insurance and Labour’s National Transformation Fund of capital
      expenditure.
• The lifting of the public sector pay cap, will be
      funded from a proportion of our previously announced gradual increases in
      Corporation Tax.
• As part of Labour’s National Transformation Fund, £10
      billion across the course of the Parliament will be used for capital
      investment in the NHS, matching the estimated need identified by NHS
      Providers.
• In total this represents a cash boost of £37 billion
      for the English NHS across the course of the Parliament.

John McDonnell, Labour’s Shadow
Chancellor, commenting
on the OECD’s economic outlook for the UK economy that has revised down future
growth, said:

“This is a hammer blow for
the Tories’ economic credibility. Only Italy is set to be a worse performer
than Britain amongst the major economies, and the Tories’ cliff-edge Brexit
will trash business investment.

"The OECD’s calls for
increased investment in our economy is a ringing endorsement of Labour’s
economic policy in this election, and shows the clear choice voters have on
Thursday. It is between a Labour plan for serious investment in our economy,
with a focus on living standards and a jobs-first plan for Brexit; or a Tory
plan that would hold our nation back with continued cuts to vital public
services and chronic under-investment.”

Labour is today taking its message to
voters from all corners of the country by hosting six simultaneous rallies,
showing we truly are the party for the many and not the few.

The rallies, which are due to take
place this evening from 7pm in: Barry (Wales), Birmingham, Brighton, Glasgow,
London and Warrington, will bring people
together and show there is strong support for an
alternative to the seven lost years of Tory
rule.

Jeremy Corbyn, set to attend the
Birmingham rally, will simultaneously appear via satellite link at the five
other events to deliver his message that only a Labour Government will deliver
a fairer Britain that works for everyone, not just the privileged few. 

Those coming to lend their support
include members of Labour’s Shadow Cabinet, big name electronic acts Clean
Bandit and DJ Floating Points, celebrity supporters Steve Coogan, Ben Elton and
Maxine Peake, and chart toppers Wolf Alice and Reverend and the Makers.

Jeremy Corbyn, Leader of the Labour
Party said:

“Since the election was called,
we have taken Labour’s message of hope to towns and
cities across the UK. Tonight, we will speak to tens of thousands of
people across the country about the clear choice facing the British
people during this election.

"While the Conservatives promise
five more years of a country run for the super-rich and cuts for everyone
else, Labour will transform Britain by
investing in infrastructure and new industries and rebuilding the NHS and our
public services.

“Labour will abolish tuition fees to give everyone
a chance to fulfil their potential and create a fairer Britain by introducing a £10 an hour minimum wage, banning zero hours
contracts, protecting winter fuel payments and safeguarding state pensions through the triple lock.

"On Thursday, the British people
will go to the polls and have the chance to vote for a government that will
transform our country for the many, not the few.”

John
McDonnell, Labour’s Shadow Chancellor, commenting on the
latest retail figures from the British Retail Consortium showing a slowdown in
sales, said:

“These
figures are deeply worrying, and are further proof that seven years of Tory
austerity has resulted in abject failure. Wages are still lower than they were
in 2010. The Tories have no plan to tackle the fact that prices are rising
faster than wages. This is leading to living standards
being squeezed and working families being hit the hardest, with the impact now
reaching the high street.

“Growth is
slowing, retail sales are down, business investment and wages are falling back.
Under the Conservatives the economy is neither strong nor stable. And a
vote for the Tories on Thursday is a vote for more of the same, and no solution
to the problems their economic policies are clearly creating for our economy,
and working households.

“Only a Labour Government will
take the action needed to end the Tories’ economic failure by introducing
a Real Living Wage of £10 an hour, and by investing
in an economy that works for the many, while the
Tories are only prepared to protect big business and a wealthy few.”

Jonathan Ashworth, Labour’s Shadow
Health Secretary,
responding to leaked reports in the Health Service Journal said: 

“With 48 hours to go until
the General Election the true scale of the secret Tory plan for cuts and
closures across the NHS has been revealed by the Health Service Journal.

“We now know if the Tories are
re-elected on Thursday we’ll see hospital wards closed, waiting times growing,
treatments rationed and staff cut.

“The fact that NHS bosses have
described this as the ‘most extreme and difficult NHS finance process they had
experienced’ and would ‘challenge the value basis of the NHS’ will make
chilling reading for patients and their families who deserve the very best
levels of care.

“Every single day the Tories are
in power hospitals are being left to crumble, staff are being let down, waiting
lists are growing and patients are being denied the care they need and
deserve. 

“Let’s be clear: these new, secret
Tory plans will only be stopped by electing a Labour Government on Thursday.

"The NHS cannot survive five
more years of a Tory government. That is why, Labour will pledge to bring the
health service back from the brink with a multi-billion pound rescue package.
The British people deserve nothing less.”

Ends

Notes to editors

·        
‘Exclusive:
New national savings drive will ‘challenge the values’ of NHS leaders’ [www.hsj.co.uk/topics/finance-and-efficiency/exclusive-new-national-savings-drive-will-challenge-the-values-of-nhs-leaders/7018461.article?blocktitle=News&contentID=15303]