Andrew Griffith says “I do understand people's concerns” over the National Health Service after a patient satisfaction survey revealed that public confidence in the NHS had dropped to a 40-year low. The science minister says he was “not surprised” by the findings, blaming the global pandemic and industrial action but insists the government had put in “13% more funding in real terms since 2013”. Report by Blairm. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
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00:00 I'm not surprised coming off the back of a global unprecedented global covid pandemic that put huge
00:06 strain on the healthcare system at the time and the system partly due to industrial action has
00:12 subsequently struggled a little bit to catch up. This government has put in more funding 13% more
00:18 funding in real terms since 2019. There's more nurses, more doctors, more GP appointments
00:24 available but I do understand people's concern. I recognise the picture from what my own
00:30 constituents tell me. There's no lawdits for anyone but the results in Conservative-run England were
00:36 a little bit better than they were in Labour-run Wales or Nationalist-run Scotland. So this is a
00:42 picture that we're seeing across the piece. It's not just as a result of any one government. We're
00:47 focusing on reducing waiting lists. That's one of the five, the Prime Minister's five key priorities.
00:53 The good news is that waiting lists have fallen for each of every one of the last four months.
00:59 Those with the longest waits above two years, above 18 months, have been almost eliminated.
01:04 That was the first focus and we continue to make progress in reducing waiting lists overall
01:09 and there are more GP appointments available now. This survey was conducted in the past
01:15 but there's more GP appointments available now than ever before.