Philip Dunne, sacked after his NHS remarks, must now face his constituents | Tess Finch-Lees

I was not surprised by my MP’s callous comments about patients without beds using seats instead. Look at what has been happening in his own backyard

The sacked health minister Philip Dunne was booed and heckled at a local meeting recently, for hiding behind his ministerial role as a pretext for abandoning constituents (of whom I’m one) to the ravages of NHS cuts. His callous comments on Monday, undermining the NHS beds crisis by suggesting sick patients can sit on seats in A&E, came as no surprise to me.

The irony is that, while Dunne boasted about the abundance of seats (beds are so 1970s) in his own constituency, on Christmas Eve, there weren’t even any seats available in A&E. Patients waiting had to sit on the floor and staff had to step over them.

Related: NHS beds crisis: sick patients can sit in A&E, says health minister

Related: The winter crisis has left the NHS running on empty – it needs a fix, now | Chris Hopson

Continue reading... January 12, 2018 at 07:21PM