STARVED of funding BOTCHED by the Tories

Starmer vows to fix damage but it will take 10 years

- MARTIN BAGOT

THE devastating damage done to our NHS by 14 years of Tory rule has been laid bare in a damning landmark report.

A&E queues have doubled, patients are dying waiting to be seen, access to care has collapsed, staff morale is rock bottom and the nation's health has deteriorated.

Lord Darzi's review found the service had been starved of funds and hit by botched Tory reforms.

And Keir Starmer vowed to clean up the mess within a decade as he lays into the last government's endless cuts that left the NHS struggling to cope with Covid.

In a speech today, the PM will brand the damage "unforgivable" and say: "People have every right to be angry. It's not just because the NHS is so personal to all of us, it's because some of these failings are life and death.

"Take A&E waiting times. That's not just a source of fear and anxiety.

It's leading to avoidable deaths.

"People's loved ones who could have been saved. Doctors and nurses whose whole vocation is to save them, hampered from doing so. It's devastating" Mr Starmer pledged to launch the "biggest reimagining of our NHS since its birth" in 1948.

Surgeon and independent peer Lord Darzi said: "Although I have worked for the NHS for more than 30 years I have been shocked by what I found in this investigation.