What is really going on in politics? Get our daily email briefing straight to your inbox Sign up Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Invalid Email

Labour blame 120,000 deaths on Tory austerity in a hard-hitting new TV broadcast.

The clip, to be broadcast for the first time on Wednesday evening, says Tory cuts and NHS privatisation have caused a “national emergency”.

Voiced by actors playing nurses, doctors and patients in the NHS, the film explicitly links £7 billion of cuts to health and social care and falling life expectancy and excess deaths in England.

Oxford University Professor Danny Dorling said: "The claim that there are at least 120,000 excess deaths is absolutely true and the only credible cause that it is possible to identify is austerity.

“It I remarkable that we have a government which imposes policies that are obviously harmful to the people they serve"

One powerful moment in the short film, directed by Simon Baker, sees a hospital nurse, played by an actor, close to tears, saying: “There’s a lot of anger out there, and I get it. But I can’t do the jobs of three people. I just can’t do it.

“When I see elderly patients waiting for hours in A&E, ambulances queued round the block because they can’t get anywhere near the door.

“How does that make any sense in one of the richest countries in the world?”

Another shows a patient saying: “Oh, I know, we've got to tighten our belts. All in it together.

“We’ve been doing that for the last 8 years though, haven’t we? What’s it gotten us?"

Labour ’s shadow health and social care secretary Jonathan Ashworth said: “This is hard hitting but it’s time for the Tories to face up to the devastating consequences of what they’ve done.

“The NHS is one of the things that people most love about our country, it makes us all proud but the Tories disastrous austerity policy has hit the NHS and the support services that people rely on.

“It’s caused a national emergency where, shamefully, for the first since 1945 life expectancy is actually falling in some of the poorest areas.

“ And just yesterday we heard a senior Tory ministers admit their botched Universal Credit roll out has forced even more people to food banks. This is a national emergency made in Downing Street that the Tories must answer for”

The film will be broadcast in full for the first time at 5pm on Wednesday.

Dr Tony O'Sullivan, a retired paediatrician and Chair of Keep our NHS Public said: "The Tories have run a deliberate policy of privatisation because they don't like the NHS as a public service model.

"They've combined it with a deliberate policy of austerity so that people turn around and say, we can't afford an NHS so we may as well hand it over to people who put profits first like Branson's Virgin. We need a change of priorities and a change of government"

Note:

This story originally included a line of dialogue which was not present in the final edit of the film, but was included in an earlier version of the script circulated before its release. The story has been edited to reflect the broadcast version.