An angry woman has confronted England Health Secretary Steve Barclay in the street about ambulances. She demanded to know why the Conservatives have done "nothing" to tackle lengthy waits.
Mr Barclay was speaking to media outside Moorfields Eye Hospital in Old Street, central London, when a woman interrupted him to highlight how "people have died" during waits for the emergency services. This comes after a report by the Care Quality Commission showed that patients were facing "frequent and prolonged" waits for ambulances.
The report exposed several cases, including that of an elderly patient who died after waiting 14 hours for assistance from South Central Ambulance Service. On Thursday, Mr Barclay was given a tour of an operating theatre by surgeons at Moorfields Eye Hospital before speaking to press on the street outside.
During his interviews, a woman passing by approached Mr Barclay and asked him: "Are you going to do anything about the ambulances waiting, and the people dying out?" Mr Barclay replied: "Of course we are."
Referencing the Tories' spell in Government, the woman continued: "Don't you think 12 years is long enough? Twelve years – you've done bu**er all about it.
"People have died, and all you've done is nothing." Following the heated interaction, Mr Barclay said that reducing ambulance waiting times is an "absolute priority" for the Government.
He told the PA news agency: "There's a range of measures that we're taking. We're looking at conveyance rates in ambulances, we're looking at how we address variation in performance, we're looking at funding – an extra £150million to the ambulance service, a further £50m into call centres, for 111 and 999, in terms of call handling, a further £30m into St John Ambulance around the auxiliary ambulance performance.
"We're also then looking at what happens with the ambulance handovers, so emergency departments, how we triage those, how we look at the allocation of this within the system. Of course, that is all connected to delayed discharge and people being ready to leave hospital who are not doing so, and that’s about the integration of care between social care and hospitals.
"So there's a range of issues within how we deliver on ambulances, but it's an absolute priority both for the Government and for NHS England." When asked by PA whether he was worried about the future of the NHS under a likely tax-cutting economy run by possible future Prime Minister Liz Truss, Mr Barclay said she was "the longest-serving Cabinet minister" but did not comment on her tax policies.
