Jeremy Corbyn calls on Government to introduce emergency budget to boost NHS spending

Labour leader to use Westminster rally to call on Theresa May to boost health spending

Jeremy Corbyn said the Conservatives were failing 'NHS staff, patients and their families' (PA)

Jeremy Corbyn is to call for the Government to introduce an emergency budget and pump money into the NHS to help it cope with the winter crisis.

The Labour leader will use a rally in Westminster on Thursday evening to claim the pressures on the health system are being caused by the “political choices of this Tory Government” and demand that Theresa May urgently boost investment.

It comes as Labour released analysis showing hospitals in senior cabinet ministers’ constituencies have been almost completely full this winter.

The hospital trust covering Theresa May’s Maidenhead constituency had an average bed occupancy of 97.6 per cent, while in Boris Johnson’s Uxbridge constituency beds were full almost every night, with occupancy rates of 99.3 per cent.

In the Royal Surrey trust area covering Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt’s constituency, almost one in four patients had to wait for more than 30 minutes in the back of an ambulance.

Addressing the rally, Mr Corbyn is expected to say: “There must be no mistake: the NHS crisis is being caused by the political choices of this Tory Government.

“The Government is failing staff, patients and their families across the whole country. All 20 members of the Cabinet’s own constituencies have dangerously full hospitals, with patients stuck in the back of ambulances and on trolleys.

“We simply can’t go on like this. The Government must bring forward an emergency budget for the NHS to give it the money it needs and end this crisis.

“The Tories are failing our NHS. Labour built the NHS 70 years ago and it will be the next Labour government that secures our NHS for the next 70 years.”

New official figures published by NHS show that, so far this winter, more than 89,000 patients have had to wait in the back of an ambulance for between 30 and 60 members, while a further 26,845 were left waiting for over an hour.

Mr Corbyn will be joined at the rally, being held at the Westminster Central Methodist Hall, by Shadow Health Secretary Jonathan Ashworth.

Mr Ashworth is expected to say: “Under the Tories, our NHS has been left underfunded, understaffed and overstretched. Despite the heroic efforts of our NHS staff, thousands of vulnerable patients have been left languishing on trolleys, stuck in the backs of ambulances and unable to receive the social care packages they urgently need.

“Our new analysis reveals that her entire inner circle is facing a disastrous winter crisis in their own backyards, with average bed occupancy in the Cabinet at 95% this winter. Perhaps her closest allies will now pressurise the Prime Minister into heeding Labour’s call for an emergency budget of £5 billion for our NHS.”

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “The NHS was given top priority in the recent Budget with an extra £2.8bn allocated over the next two years, and was recently ranked as the best and safest healthcare system in the world.

“We know the NHS is extremely busy, which is why we provided an additional £437m of funding to cope with winter. This is in addition to the largest single increase in doctor training places in the history of the NHS — a 25 per cent expansion.”