Andy Burnham MP, Labour’s Shadow Health Secretary, responding to the Nuffield Trust and Health Foundation’s report on ‘The four health systems of the UK’ showing the performance gap narrowing, said:
“This important study shows the NHS made great strides under the last Labour Government and those who seek to run it down would do well to study its conclusions carefully.
“David Cameron should be embarrassed by this report. It exposes his merciless attempts to run down the NHS in Wales, when the facts show it’s been making more progress than England in recent years. Cameron has been caught out putting politics before patients.
“David Cameron and Jeremy Hunt have waged a sinister spin operation against the NHS in Wales - and the NHS more generally - for their own political purposes. They want to distract attention from their own record on the NHS in England, where a re-organisation no-one wanted has led to a crisis in A&E and put the NHS on a path towards privatisation.
“The reality is that the NHS in Wales has improved over the last decade thanks to Labour investment and reform – though of course there is further to go. Where care is not good enough anywhere in the UK, it must be addressed.
“But when the Tories were last in charge in Wales, people were waiting two years for operations. They have not forgotten that and it’s why people in Wales don’t trust the Tories with the NHS.”
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