PM ‘sympathises’ with relative of woman, 88, in A&E corridor wait

BORIS JOHNSON has said he sympathises with the relative of an elderly woman who spent hours in an A&E corridor waiting for a bed, after being shown pictures of the 88-year-old.

During a BBC Breakfast appearance, Mr Johnson was shown statistics which said targets for A&E, cancer services and routine care waiting times had not been met for several years.

After questioning the Prime Minister on the statistics, presenter Naga Munchetty remained on the topic of the NHS and played an interview clip to the Conservative leader.

Peter Tuck, whose 88-year-old mother-in-law has dementia and faced a six-hour wait on a trolley in A&E, said there were “trolleys in the corridors, trolleys in the doorways” at the hospital.

“They had to move trolleys out of the way to get trolleys by,” Mr Tuck said in the clip, as pictures of his mother-in-law on an A&E trolley were shown. “And it didn’t stop there, as you nipped out to the loo, literally [trolleys] waiting in the doors to come in.”

The PM said: “I sympathise very much for Peter’s experience and for his mother, and we have got to do better, and I don’t deny that.

“But that doesn’t mean that I’m not also incredibly proud of what the NHS is achieving.

“You look at other services around the world, we have amazing staff and amazing doctors, and, yes, we need to be investing more in them and that’s exactly what we’re doing. But that’s not the only thing we’re doing.”

The Prime Minister said he last used NHS services after standing on glass at a barbecue – and staff at the hospital told him more investment was needed.