Rishi Sunak has been captured on camera being challenged by a former health worker about the struggling state of the NHS. The prime minister was walking through Winchester, Hampshire on a visit when the woman tried to ask him what he was doing to improve the health service. In the clip, Sunak was heard telling the woman that there had been progress in reducing the waiting lists before strikes hampered the government’s efforts to bring them down last year. The woman said he could “stop it all” and that she wanted the NHS to go back to the way it used to be. Sunak then laughed, but a Downing Street source said he was responding to something in the crowd rather than to the woman. She said to Sunak: “If you had a problem, you could go to the hospital. My daughter spent seven hours waiting with an asthma problem.”
As she was speaking, Sunak was told by an aide that he had to move on and he turned his back to the woman and started walking. She walked with him and he said: “I’m sorry to hear that. The key thing is we have resolved all the industrial action apart from the junior doctors who have still not settled yet.” At the end of the encounter, the woman thanked him and shook his hand. Keir Starmer said Sunak appeared out of touch. “I’ve seen that clip and it further reinforces, I think, what many people across the country think: that this prime minister doesn’t talk to people, doesn’t engage, doesn’t understand, what so many people are going through,” the Labour leader told broadcasters. “We have a terrible problem with our waiting lists and that is why we have been really clear that we would get rid of the non-dom tax status where the super-rich don’t pay their tax in this country, and use that to bring down those waiting lists … We have got a plan, we engage with people over our plan, we don’t laugh and walk away.” The footage was captured by an off-duty Sky News camera operator. The Conservatives later tweeted their own version of the footage, saying: “Today the Prime Minister Rishi Sunak had a productive discussion on how we are delivering record funding for the NHS & cutting waiting lists while meeting members of the public.”