A furious woman has confronted health secretary Steve Barclay over ambulance delays, accusing the government of doing “bugger all”.
The minister was interrupted while being interviewed outside London’s Moorfields Eye Hospital, with the woman highlighting how “people have died” while waiting for emergency services.
The woman 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,” but the woman continued: “Don’t you think 12 years is long enough?
“Twelve years – you’ve done bugger 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.
The incident comes after a report by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) showed that patients were facing “frequent and prolonged” waits for ambulances.
The report exposed several cases, such as that of an elderly patient who died after waiting 14 hours for assistance from South Central Ambulance Service.
Last week, it emerged a 90-year-old woman was forced to wait 40 hours for an ambulance, only to be stuck in the vehicle outside of A&E for the night waiting for an available bed.
Steven Syms, from St Austwell in Cornwall, said the NHS system is “totally broken” as he explained his mother’s distressing ordeal waiting for emergency services following a fall. Mr Syms said he called 999 for his mother Daphne on Sunday but paramedics did not arrive until Tuesday.
Meanwhile, an 87-year-old who suffered a fall outdoors was forced to wait so long for an ambulance that his family built a makeshift shelter around him.
Great-grandfather David Wakeley suffered several broken bones including a cracked pelvis when he fell in the grounds of his home in mid-Cornwall at 7.30pm on Monday. The ambulance did not arrive until 11.30am on Tuesday.
Mr Barclay said the government was taking a range of measures, including funding an extra £150 million into the ambulance service, a further £50 million into call centres, as well as a further £30 million into St John Ambulance.
He added: “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 whether he was worried about the future of the NHS under a likely tax-cutting economy run by Liz Truss, Mr Barclay said she was “the longest-serving Cabinet minister” but did not comment on her tax policies.
The man’s family were forced to build a shelter to protect him from the rain
