British Hospitals in Crisis Under Tory-Led Government - Labour Party

MOSCOW (Sputnik), Yulia Shamporova — British hospitals have been suffering greatly under the Tory-led government, which wasted billions of pounds on reorganization that led to nothing but damages, a Labour party spokesperson told Sputnik Tuesday.

"It is only under this Tory-led Government that hospitals are in crisis – after David Cameron wasted £3bn on a damaging top-down reorganization he promised wouldn't happen," the Labour spokesperson said.

The party spokesperson also added that Labour built or refurbished over 100 hospitals while it was last in government, replacing the crumbling Victorian estate inherited from the Tories.

Before the British general election in 2010, David Cameron promised that there would be no more top down reorganizations of the National Health Service (NHS), waiting times would be kept down and front-line services would be protected, but those promises did not become a reality.

In 2013, the British NHS system underwent the biggest reorganization since it was created, finding three billion pounds of savings for the country's budget. The reorganization covered the NHS budget, its system of local and general management, patient waiting times and some other issues. The NHS also suffered from a budget freeze made as part of the government's plan to reduce the country's deficit.

In March, the King's Fund, an independent British charitable organization, described the NHS as "working close to the limits" in most areas as well as characterizing the re-organization as a failure. The charity's assessment of the NHS's performance from 2010 to 2015 concluded that waiting times were at their highest levels in years, while an unprecedented number of hospitals reported deficits.

The vast budget cuts to the NHS have become a crucial issue in the run-up to the May 7 UK general elections, with Cameron's Conservative party facing criticism over the performance of the NHS.