Theresa May has rejected a claim by the British Red Cross that the NHS is in the midst of a humanitarian crisis.

In her first interview of 2017, the prime minister said she did not agree with the term used by Mike Adamson, chief executive of the British Red Cross, to describe the situation created in NHS hospitals by the pressure for services over the winter period.

She also indicated that she would resist the call from the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, to make an emergency statement on the issue when MPs return to the House of Commons on Monday.

Asked about the humanitarian crisis claim in an interview by Sky’s Sophy Ridge, May said: “I don’t accept the description the Red Cross has made of this.”

Paying tribute to the 150,000 NHS staff who she said were working on Christmas Day and New Year’s Day, May acknowledged that the NHS faced “significant pressures” that she attributed to an ageing population.

She insisted, however that the health service had drawn up its own five-year plan to address these, which she said the government was funding.

“We have an ageing population and this brings pressures, particularly in the interface between the health service and social care,” she said.

Referring to the recent decision to allow councils to raise council tax to fund social care, she said: “We’ve taken some immediate steps in relation to that issue, but we are also looking to ensure best practice in the NHS and looking at a long-term solution to what has been a problem that’s been ducked by government over the years.”

In a separate interview with the BBC’s Andrew Marr, the education secretary, Justine Greening, said that in her previous role as international development secretary she witnessed several humanitarian crises first hand, such as the Ebola outbreak and the earthquake in Nepal, and that she did not think it was right for the British Red Cross to apply the same terminology to what was happening in the NHS.

Greening also said the fact that the Red Cross had been helping the NHS to transport patients was “not particularly unusual”. She said organisations such as St John Ambulance helped the NHS every day.

On Saturday, Corbyn said the NHS was at breaking point, and that May should deliver a statement on the subject to the Commons. “Labour is calling on the government to cancel their tax breaks for the wealthiest and fund our NHS instead,” he said.

“The people of this country need an explanation for the state of emergency in our hospitals, and an account of what action will be taken to end it. The only person who can do that is the prime minister.”

When May was asked about the possibility of a Commons statement, she refused to commit herself to making one.

The British Medical Association said May had shown no sign of understanding the scale of the problem since she became prime minister. Its chairman, Dr Mark Porter, said: “Given that the NHS was facing the worst winter on record, the unacceptable absence of additional funding for health and social care in the autumn statement has only further exacerbated the crisis.



“As lack of beds and inadequate social care funding has prompted the Red Cross to declare a humanitarian crisis in our hospitals, Theresa May cannot continue to bury her head in the sand as the situation in our NHS and social care sector deteriorates.



“Now more than ever, investment in health and social care funding is critical to ease the pressure on acute beds as patients are left to endure some of the worst conditions in decades.”

The Liberal Democrat spokesman and former health minister Norman Lamb accused the prime minister of being in “complete denial”.

“The reality is that chronic underfunding by her government is running our health service into the ground,” he said. “Ministers must come before parliament and explain to the public what is being done to respond to this crisis, including whether emergency funding will be provided to keep vital services going.”