Labour warn over full-blown NHS crisis

Shadow Health secretary Andy Burnham speaking during the Labour Party's annual conference

The shadow health secretary, who called for social care to be brought into the NHS, said Labour would do “whatever it takes” to protect the health service.

But he warned that a “toxic mix of cuts and privatisation” put the future of the NHS at risk under the current Government’s plans.

On BBC1’s Andrew Marr Show Mr Burnham said: “I think the NHS in the next Parliament now is looking at a very serious crisis if things stay as they are.

“If we stay with the funding position that the Government has set out, and all the experts say that won’t be enough, but also this big reorganisation that they have brought forward, I believe, has put the NHS on the wrong path and that’s a path towards increasing privatisation.”

He added: “If things stay as they are, if we stick on the plans the Government has set out, the NHS will tip into a full blown crisis in the next Parliament.

“I think it will be subsumed by a toxic mix of cuts and privatisation.

“Labour is saying we will put additional money into the NHS come what may.

“We will put more money into the NHS because we need to help it rebuild into a 21st century service.”