MP slams government figures

They show that almost 500,000 people each year are forced to wait for over twelve months for hospital treatment, with 43,981 patients on the South East Coast alone waiting for over a year after being referred by their local GP.

Speaking after undertaking voluntary cleaning at the Conquest Hospital at Hastings last Friday, the MP said: "This comes after government Ministers in Whitehall consistently claim that they have reached waiting times for hospital patients, even though Labour did not even begin publishing 'referral-to-treatment' waiting time data until last year.

"For years, patients have been forced to hear Gordon Brown talk about how no-one waits more than six months for an operation.

"However, the publication for the first time of official government statistics shows that patients along the South Coast often wait for over a year for vital hospital treatment.

"We all know NHS staff work hard every day to deliver improvements in patient care, but they are held back by a top-down, target-driven culture imposed by Gordon Brown.

"That is why we need to take politicians out of the running of the NHS and set doctors and nurses free to make the decisions about patients based on their need."