The Prime Minister refused to name the spiralling NHS as a crisis during a heated interview with the BBC's Laura Kuenssberg this morning (Sunday).
Rishi Sunak was challenged with the testimonies of NHS staff who are calling this the most difficult time in their careers. However, he became mired in questions on whether the government is open to discussing this year's pay deal with nurses in order to end strike action, and hit back at figures from the Royal College of Emergency Medicine which suggest that hundreds of patients are unnecessarily dying as a result of the ongoing severe delays.
However, while the BBC presenter pressed him on the daily scenes of pandemonium in A&Es up and down the country, the Prime Minister claimed that some areas are now experiencing improvements to the standard of care. He says that policies being implemented to free up beds and speed up treatment are working amid a treacherous winter in the NHS so far.
