The crisis in our NHS is unprecedented. People are lying on trolleys in corridors waiting to be seen.
Hospitals have had to close their doors, unable to admit patients.
The health service is at breaking point.
But this crisis is not due to an outbreak of disease. It is a crisis made in Downing Street by this government – a crisis we warned them about.
The Red Cross yesterday announced it is providing humanitarian assistance to NHS trusts that simply do not have the resources to cope.
This is a national scandal – and Theresa May and Jeremy Hunt have to take both responsibility and urgent action to tackle it.
I’m grateful to the Red Cross volunteers who have stepped in during this emergency, as well as the hard working NHS staff who are being let down and undermined by this government.
But we should not have to rely on the Red Cross to provide the basic care the people of this country need.
The fact is this government have repeatedly failed to put the necessary resources into our health service, while they have cut social care and wasted billions on a top-down reorganization to accelerate privatization.
And despite finding billions of tax giveaways for big business and the richest, Theresa May’s Conservatives failed to find a single penny for the NHS in their autumn statement.
Our NHS cannot survive if this government does not change course.
Labour is calling on the government to cancel their tax breaks for the wealthiest and fund our NHS instead.
The people of this country need an explanation for the state of emergency in our hospitals, and an account of what action will be taken to end it.
The only person who can do that is the Prime Minister.
So I am demanding that the Prime Minister comes to the House of Commons on Monday and sets out to the British people how she plans to fix her failure on the NHS.