Labour branded the abandoned pledged as “yet another broken promise”.
Yet another Tory election pledge has been scrapped, after Rishi Sunak’s government abandoned a 2019 manifesto promise to recruit 6,000 more GPs in England.
Tory Health Minister Neil O’Brien has admitted that the target was unlikely to be hit amid mounting struggles to recruit and retain family doctors.
During an NHS visit yesterday, Sunak refused to repeat the vow when challenged. He told a reporter: “Right now, there are almost 2,000 more doctors working in general practice than in 2019.”
Investing in the NHS was a key Tory pledge, with the commitment to recruit 6,000 extra GPs made by former Health Secretary Matt Hancock in 2019, as well as a promise to create 50 million more GP appointments a year by 2024/25.
Yet after more than a decade of austerity and funding cuts to the NHS, it was always clear these targets would never be met.
Labour branded the abandoned pledged as “yet another broken promise”.
Shadow health minister Andrew Gwynne said: “The Conservatives have a plan for managed decline of the NHS.”
Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward
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