The Tories have spent the last nine years starving the NHS of money and wasting resources on fragmenting it’s organisation. Yesterday, they announced a 10-year plan for the NHS, which is just more of the same. In an astonishing attempt to rewrite history, the Health Secretary Matt Hancock tried to claim that the NHS was created by the Tories under the Churchill Government. It was in fact created by Clement Attlee’s Labour Government, and that Churchill’s Tories at the time voted against its creation twenty-two times.

Under the last Labour Government, the NHS enjoyed the largest increase in funding in real terms it has ever seen, with a massive increase of nearly 6%. Even under the Thatcher/Major Government, the NHS had a 3.4% funding increase. This puts into stark contrast the meagre 1.3% increase that we have seen from successive Tory Governments.

This announcement brings the funding increase up to 3%, but after nearly a decade of underfunding, and a 7 year pay freeze for staff which has meant pay cuts, this is hardly a record investment to be celebrated. In fact, in this coming year, after the NHS budget has been adjusted, there will be a £1 billion shortfall.

I asked if, in the interests of transparency, the Health Secretary would admit the mistakes of the last Tory Government with the introduction of the disastrous Lansley Act and the Health and Social Care Act in 2012, which fragmented the NHS and hindered the delivery of healthcare to patients. He refused.

There were no announcements to tackle the huge waiting lists the NHS currently has, with 4.3 million people waiting for treatment, and over 500,000 patients waiting over eighteen weeks. It does not address the huge facing the staff shortages currently in the NHS. The NHS currently has around 100,000 vacancies, with around 40,000 of those for nurses. There is a shortage of 5,000 mental health nurses, and district nursing numbers are down by half. There was no explanation for how this will be tackled.

The Health Secretary even boasted about the introduction of Urgent Care Centres, which as we have seen in Wallasey could lead to the closures of our Walk-In Centres, a move which will only result in further fragmentation and will reduce the healthcare services on offer locally. This is a Government that has no plan for how to recruit and retain the staff the NHS desperately needs

The NHS cannot cope with another decade of the Tories. We need a Labour Government now.