Cameron’s conference pledge attacked by doctor’s leaders

Prime Minister David Cameron has vowed to deliver a “truly seven-days-a-week NHS” for England if the Conservatives win the election.

Speaking at the party’s spring conference in Manchester yesterday, Mr Cameron set out plans for patients to be able to access full hospital services at weekends by 2020.

However, his plans immediately came under attack from doctors’ leaders who accused him of “shameless political game playing”.

Mr Cameron said: “For years it’s been too hard to access the NHS out of hours.

“But illness doesn’t respect working hours. Heart attacks, major accidents, babies these things don’t just happen nine to five.

“And the truth is that you are actually more likely to die if you turn up at the hospital at the weekend.

“Some of the resources are not up-and-running. The key decision-makers aren’t always there. With a future Conservative government, we would have a truly seven-day NHS.

“Already millions more people can see a GP seven days a week, but by 2020 I want this for everyone, with hospitals properly staffed, especially for urgent and emergency care, so that everyone will have access to the NHS services they need seven days a week by 2020 the first country in the world to make this happen.”

Mr Cameron also admitted the general election is on a “knife edge” as he used his first big speech of the campaign to launch a blistering attack on Ed Miliband.

Addressing activists, he sought to cast the contest as a personal battle between himself and a Labour leader he said was not up to the job.

Mr Cameron said that in an election race which “can only be cut two ways” with either him or Mr Miliband entering No 10 it was right he should focus on his opponent, saying “the personal is national”.

He accused the Labour leader of planning to “crawl up Downing Street on the coat-tails of the SNP” and warned that his spending plans would wreck the economic recovery.

“Now five years in this job teaches you some things. I know what this role needs and, frankly, I don’t think Ed Miliband has it,” he said.

“Some might say: ‘Don’t make this personal,’ but when it comes to who’s prime minister, the personal is national.”

He said that under Mr Miliband, Labour had become a “bunch of hypocritical, holier-than-thou, hopeless, sneering socialists” having betrayed its traditional values and its belief in the dignity of work.

The Prime Minister was briefly heckled by a man in the audience who later told reporters that he was a Conservative Party member but had voted Ukip at the last election because of Mr Cameron’s betrayal on Europe and immigration.

Last night, Dr Mark Porter, who chairs the British Medical Association council, hit out at the rhetoric.

He said the Conservatives had not even committed the funds needed to maintain existing services.

“With existing services stretched to breaking point, a majority of hospitals facing crippling budget deficits and frontline staff under extreme pressure, the NHS needs far more than just words to deliver extra care,” he said.

“Without a detailed, fully-costed plan to provide the staff and resources needed to deliver more seven-day services, this is at best an empty pledge and at worst shameless political game playing with the NHS ahead of the election.”

Labour’s campaign vice chair Lucy Powell accused the Conservatives of misleading voters, saying their spending plans would mean “extreme” cuts to the NHS.

“On the NHS, David Cameron misled people in 2010 and he’s misleading them again today,” she said.

“When he pledges seven-day-a-week care in the NHS, people will remember that he did exactly the same before the last election, only to break his word.”

A Liberal Democrat spokesman said that NHS England already had plans in place to move towards hospitals and GPs being open seven days a week.

“To keep this sustainable we need to back the NHS with more investment. Only the Liberal Democrats have a credible plan to invest the £8 billion per year by 2020 that is needed,” the spokesman said.

Ukip health spokesman Louise Bours said: “If the Tories were serious about the NHS they would have brought these changes in over the last five years, but instead they have degenerated it beyond all recognition.”