The public should trust Labour, we can turn the NHS around — we did it before and we will do it again
NATHANIEL DYE waited more than 100 days to begin his bowel cancer treatment.
While he waited, his cancer spread and became terminal. It’s likely that wait will cost him his life.
Not that you’d know it from meeting him.
Last month he ran the London Marathon while playing the trombone, fundraising for Macmillan Cancer Support.
He has thrown himself into campaigning for a better health service so patients in future don’t suffer the same fate.
This week, I had the privilege of sharing a stage with Nathaniel as Keir Starmer, my Shadow Cabinet colleagues and I launched Labour’s first steps: six plans to begin to turn our country around.
They include thousands more teachers in our schools and police on our streets, Great British Energy to bring down bills, and a new Border Security Command to smash the criminal smuggling gangs.
Every policy is built on a rock of economic stability, because we will never repeat the recklessness of Liz Truss’s mini-Budget or Rishi Sunak’s unfunded £46billion tax plan.
The first steps are fully costed, fully funded and ready to go.
And each one is a pledge that Sun readers can judge a Labour government on.
If we haven’t delivered after five years, then you can kick us out.
We’re asking you to give change a chance.
History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.
Keir’s first steps have inevitably been compared to Tony Blair’s pledge card in 1997.
We make no apologies for learning from what works.
Not only did Blair win three elections, but along with Gordon Brown he delivered the shortest waits and the highest patient satisfaction in the history of the NHS.
It’s why the public should trust that Labour can turn the NHS around — we did it before and we will do it again. Things can get better.
The first step to cut waiting times will be 40,000 extra appointments a week at evenings and weekends, paid for by clamping down on tax dodgers and non-dom loopholes.
The £1.1billion cost goes directly into the pockets of NHS staff, to pay overtime rates.
As well as extra investment, Labour’s reforms will change the way the NHS works, so the money is well spent.
Under the Tories, half of hospitals close their operating theatres on weekends.
Labour will get the NHS working around the clock to cure sicknote Britain.
NHS waiting lists are forcing Brits out of work, often for months.
In a vicious cycle, record numbers of doctors and nurses are off work with back and joint pain while they wait for treatment, making waits even longer.
Sickly PM
Labour has agreed a partnership with charity Nuffield Health, who will provide joint pain rehab for 4,000 NHS staff a year free of charge.
We will get NHS staff back to work, so they can put Britain back to work.
That’s just the start of our plans to make sure the NHS doesn’t fail patients like Nathaniel any more.
Compare and contrast with Rishi Sunak’s umpteenth attempt to relaunch his failed leadership on Monday, as he battled through a cold.
The only new policy was a ban on rainbow lanyards.
Sniffly Sunak is a sickly Prime Minister, overseeing a sickly economy, without a prescription to restore Britain back to good health.
The General Election can’t come soon enough.