Labour recruits doctors for new war over NHS

THE Tories have accused Labour of a crude new attempt to ‘weaponise’ the NHS by orchestrating a letter from doctors claiming hospitals will not be safe if David Cameron wins the election.

Ed Miliband was also accused of hypocrisy after he claimed the Coalition had made it harder to get a GP appointment.

Mr Miliband claimed there were 600 fewer GP surgeries open at evenings and weekends than before the previous election – which he said was directly contributing to the A&E crisis.

His comments came after Labour launched a poster declaring ‘the Tories have made it harder to see a GP’.

But critics were quick to point out that his figures were out of date – and that the GP crisis was widely blamed on Labour’s GP contracts, which allowed them to opt out of out-of-hours care.

Meanwhile, it emerged last night that a Labour-supporting GP had circulated a letter claiming that ‘ five years of flat-line funding’ had ‘crippled the NHS’.

A version of the letter – organised by Dr Clare Gerada, ex-chairman of the Royal College of GPs – appeared in the Guardian signed by more than 100 doctors last night. It claimed the ‘direction of travel’ under the Tories was towards privatisation, adding: ‘Another five years of Tory austerity will sap staff morale and reduce the NHS to a poor service for poor people’.

But Tory MP Julian Smith said: ‘ This Labour stitch-up is another desperate attempt to weaponise the NHS. Under this government, we’ve got more doctors, more nurses and more patients being seen than ever before.’

In an email obtained by the Tories, Dr Gerada said signatures were being collected to ‘counter’ the 100 business leaders who wrote a Tory-supporting letter to a national paper last week. She said she was a member of the Labour Party but not an ‘activist’ and said the letter had been organised independently. She told the Daily Telegraph: ‘It has not been orchestrated by Labour, it has been put together by me and a few other medical leaders.’

The Tories say that at least two of the signatories are Labour supporters, including one who tried to stand as a Labour candidate and another who has previously spoken at the Labour Party conference. The signatories, including Professor John Ashton, retired director of public health, and Simon Capewell, professor of public health in Liverpool, wrote that the NHS was ‘withering away’.

They said: ‘If things carry on as they are then in future people will be denied care they once had under the NHS and have to pay more for health services.’

Meanwhile, as figures yesterday revealed that A&E waiting times are the longest since records began in 2004/05, Mr Miliband said: ‘One of the reasons is it’s got a lot harder to see a GP. Across England there are some 600 fewer GP surgeries open in the evenings and at weekends than there were at the last general election.’

But Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt said Labour’s ‘shoddy figures are not only wrong but also expose Labour’s rank hypocrisy over GP access’.

Mr Hunt said the figures quoted only go up to 2013/14 and that since then the Tories’ extended hours scheme has covered 1,100 practices and helped 7.5million patients see GPs in the evenings and at weekends. He said by next year the scheme will cover 1,400 additional practices, serving 10million more people.

GP Mike Dixon, chairman of the NHS Alliance, said: ‘Labour’s poster is not fair.’

Labour Treasury spokesman Chris Leslie said the figures were the latest available.

‘Cheap political

points’