We'll turbo charge NHS

Keir pledges to slash NHS waiting lists from Tories' shameful 7.5m | Crack medical teams will set up out-of-hours plan across the UK

- LIZZY BUCHAN

KEIR Starmer has vowed to instruct hospitals to set up evening and weekend clinics from Day One of a Labour government to smash NHS backlogs.

The Labour leader said he would send crack teams who are already running outof-hours programmes across the country to help set them up as soon as possible.

NHS waiting lists hit 7.5 million in England in March, with 3.2 million waiting more than 18 weeks for treatment.

And Labour analysis suggests it could hit 10 million if the Tories win another term in office, despite Rishi Sunak making slashing waiting lists one of his five pledges to voters in 2023. In his first newspaper interview of the election campaign, Mr Starmer told the Mirror it was "unforgivable" that the Tories had run the NHS down over 14 years and vowed to fix it. He said: "We've done it before and we'll do it again.