The PM was grilled on the long hospital wait Stan Solomons endured at December 29 (Picture: BBC)

Boris Johnson was given a grilling at today’s PMQs over ‘unacceptable’ NHS delays which left a war hero waiting on a trolley for 12 hours.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn brought up the case of Second World War veteran Stan Solomons, 92, and demanded the government apologise to him.

The former RAF pilot from Loughborough was rushed to A&E at Leicester Royal Infirmary over a suspected illness on December 29.

He stayed on a trolley from around midday until midnight before finally getting a bed, with a power cut from 4.20pm to 6pm rendering some equipment unusable.


Challenging Johnson at the House of Commons, Corbyn said: ‘I want the government to apologise to him and many others.

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Jeremy Corbyn said A&E waiting times are at record levels (Picture: BBC)

‘But to explain why, despite the extraordinary efforts of NHS staff all over the country, over 2,000 patients had to wait over 12 hours before getting to a hospital bed last month alone.’



He said the number of patients waiting more than four hours in A&E is now at its ‘highest on record, for the second month in a row’.

Corbyn added: ‘There probably isn’t a family in the United Kingdom which hadn’t been affected in some way by cancer.

‘Yet last year we saw one in four patients waiting more than two months for the start of their cancer treatment.

‘How many more patients will face what are life-threatening delays because our NHS is under-staffed and under-funded?’

The PM said Corbyn was right to bring up ‘unacceptable’ delays and insisted that the Government ‘will get those waiting lists down’.

Johnson told MPs: ‘As the right honourable gentleman knows, there is a massive demand on the NHS, which he also knows is doing a fantastic job, particularly in oncology where tremendous progress has been made.

‘He’s right to signal the delays that people are facing, and they are indeed unacceptable, and that is why we’re investing in 50,000 more nurses, that’s why we’re investing in 6,000 more GPs and that is why this Government is investing record sums in the NHS.’

But the PM defended the Tories record and said ‘we are the party of the NHS’ (Picture: BBC)

Johnson came under fire during the general election campaign over the Conservative Party manifesto’s pledge for nursing staff when it emerged 18,500 are existing staff who would be asked not to leave the health service.

Pressing the PM, Corbyn said: ‘If he’s really committed to fixing the crisis his Government has created over the last decade, he should end the empty rhetoric and back our proposals to give the NHS the funding it needs rather than putting into law an insufficiency of funding.’

Johnson joked Mr Corbyn was ‘still fighting on the manifesto’ submitted to the public at the last election and tried to put the Tory party’s stamp on the health service – traditionally seen as Labour Party home turf.

He added: ‘I think it was pretty clear what they thought of the credibility of the promises that he made – but it was also clear what they thought of what we’re going to do as they see we are the party of the NHS.’



Things got a bit firey when the SNP’s Westminster leader Ian Blackford called Johnson a ‘democracy denier’ for not allowing a second Scottish independence referendum.

It comes after the PM rejected Nicola Sturgeon’s calls for another poll, saying the results of the 2014 vote must be respected.

Mr Blackford said: ‘The Prime Minister sent a letter to the First Minister of Scotland rejecting the democratic right of the people of Scotland to have a choice over their own future.

‘This was not a surprise, the Prime Minister is a democracy denier.

‘Can I say to the Prime Minister, as his colleagues privately admit, this position is undemocratic, unacceptable and completely unsustainable.

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SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford branded Johnson a ‘democracy denier’ (Picture: PA)

‘Does the Prime Minister accept that by ignoring Scotland, imposing Brexit with his pursuance of cruel and punishing policies, that he’s strengthening the case for Scottish independence?’

Johnson hit back by pointing out how Sturgeon and her predecessor Alex Salmond said at the time of the referendum that it was a ‘once-in-a-generation event’.

Johnson added: He said it, they said it, they were right then, why have they changed their mind? He is the denier, he is the denier of democracy.’

Last month Sturgeon defended her plan to ask for another referendum on the basis that 62 per cent of voted to remain in the European Union.

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