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HomeSourcesmirror.co.ukRishi Sunak hails 900 new NHS beds for winter

Rishi Sunak hails 900 new NHS beds for winter

The Prime Minister returned from holiday in California to visit Milton Keynes University Hospital and announce the extra capacity – but Labour pointed out how many have been lost

Brazen Rishi Sunak trumpeted 900 extra hospital beds today – but 12,000 have been cut since the Tories returned to power.

Returning from his Disneyland holiday in California, the Prime Minister visited a hospital to mark what No10 has dubbed “health week”. Speaking at Milton Keynes University Hospital, claimed the £250million announcement “is another step” on the “journey to a better performing NHS, delivering better care for people particularly this winter”. He added: “These 900 new beds will mean more people can be treated quickly, speeding up flow through hospitals and reducing frustratingly long waits for treatment.”

But Labour claimed 2023 “has been the worst year in the history of the NHS … on every measure”. It pointed to figures showing 570,000 people waited more than four hours in accident and emergency departments in July, 7.6 million patients are stranded on waiting lists, one in five patients wait longer than two weeks to see a specialist when they are referred for suspected cancer and ambulances took an average 32 minutes last month to reach patients with conditions like heart attacks or strokes, compared with an 18-minute target.

The new beds may not be available until January – leaving the struggling health service battling its annual winter crisis for weeks without them. NHS Providers director of policy Miriam Deakin said extra beds were “just one piece of a much larger puzzle”.

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