National Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer offers message to the people of Preston

The NHS runs through my DNA. My mum was a nurse when I was growing up. The NHS was her livelihood until she became too sick, and then the NHS became her lifeline and took care of her until the end. My wife works for the NHS in a hospital in London. My sister worked for the NHS too.

So the NHS is personal to me. And I’m furious when I see it, not just on its knees, but on its face after 14 years of neglect under the Tories.

The NHS waiting list is now 7.5 million – that’s 600,000 longer than when Rishi Sunak became Prime Minister. Across Lancashire and South Cumbria alone, there are 200,000 people on NHS waiting lists. That’s not just numbers. That’s 200,000 families living with the anxiety and uncertainty – possibly whilst in pain. Almost everyone reading this will either be on a waiting list, or know some one who is.

And worse still, almost 150,000 people in England died last year whilst waiting for care on the NHS. Deaths that could have been prevented if it wasn’t for the neglect and failure of this Tory government.

To be clear, the fantastic NHS staff are in no way to blame for this. I know they work tirelessly to provide the best care – I’ve seen it for myself when my own family members have been sick, and I’m forever grateful to them. But for too long, they’ve been swimming against the tide of this Tory government. They deserve a government that respects and matches their dedication.

So the starting point for a Labour government would be to slash the waiting lists. Our first step would be to deliver 40,000 extra appointments a week. We’ll have appointments at evenings and weekends, paid for by cracking down on tax dodgers and closing the non-dom loophole, so people who live here pay their taxes here.

In England, that’ll mean two million extra NHS operations, scans, and appointments each and every year.

We’ll also double the number of cancer scanners, which will allow the NHS to catch cancer and other diseases earlier, saving lives and money.

And we’ll employ 8,500 additional mental health staff to cut the waiting list for people waiting for mental health support.

Labour always has been and always will be the party of the NHS. It was a Labour government that set up the NHS. The last Labour government rescued the NHS. And it will fall to the next Labour government to save the NHS once more, to make sure it’s back on its feet and fit for the future.

This is a changed Labour Party. We have a clear plan for economic stability, 13,000 more police, cheaper bills with Great British Energy, secure borders with a new Border Security Command, 40,000 extra NHS appointments each week, and 6,500 new teachers in our children’s schools.

This is the choice on offer on 4th July. A chance to stop the chaos, turn the page, and start to rebuild our country together.