Labour will today pledge to “rescue the NHS” with a massive £26bn funding boost after a decade of crushing Tory austerity.
Thousands of staff will be recruited, crumbling hospitals and surgeries rebuilt and the state-of-the-art equipment installed.
Under a radical 10 point plan Labour will revitalise the National Health Service, reducing waiting lists and increasing access, including ensuring 95% of patients are treated within 18 weeks, upgrading A&E performance and radically improve cancer survival rates.
The cash injection is over £6bn more in real terms every year than the funding announced by the Tories a year ago.
The moves will see the NHS England’s budget increase to £154.9 bn in 2023-24.
Shadow health secretary Jon Ashworth said: “Only Labour has a plan to rescue our NHS.”
The health service has become a key election battleground with Labour promising to end privatisation and protect the NHS from a post-Brexit trade deal with Donald Trump .
They will attack Boris Johnson ’s record on the NHS after years of Tory underfunding drove the health service into year-round crisis.
Over 15,000 beds have been cut, hospitals are crumbling and the NHS is chronically short of nurses and family doctors.
Shadow chancellor John McDonnell will announce the plans for an average 4.3% funding increase every year for the next four years.
The £26bn yearly injection would be funded by reversing corporation tax cuts and taxing the richest more.
Last week the Mirror published a stark image of an 88-year-old dementia sufferer endured six hours on a trolley in a crowded A&E.
In a speech at the Royal Society of Medicine, Mr Ashworth will say today: “Just last week we all were shocked by the heart-breaking image of an 88 year old woman, left languishing for hours and hours on a trolley in a hospital corridor.
“With experts warning this winter is set to be one of the worst the truth is our NHS is crying out for a financial rescue plan to deliver real change for patients.
“We are announcing today the levels of investment our NHS needs to not only again provide the quality care our sick and elderly deserve but secures the NHS for the future as well.
“We’ll invest more to prevent people becoming ill in the first place and we’ll give mental health and wellbeing a greater priority than ever before.
"This general election is about millions on waiting list and hundreds of thousands who’ve waited on trolleys under the Tories – only Labour has a plan to rescue our NHS.”
Labour will also set out its plans to address the social care crisis in its manifesto.
The Labour NHS announcement was warmly welcomed by medical experts and healthcare unions.
British Medical Association chair Dr Chaand Nagpaul said Labour’s plans were “promising”.
He added: “Our health service is clearly struggling and... whoever forms the next Government must put the NHS back on a sustainable footing.”
Dame Donna Kinnair of the Royal College of Nursing said all parties needed to support nursing, adding: “No matter how people voted in the EU referendum, nobody wants the NHS left open to a carve-up as a result of a post-Brexit trade deal.”
Unison general secretary Dave Prentis added: “This rescue plan can’t come soon enough and will give hope to health service employees and patients across the UK.
"It takes the NHS back to the time before heartless Tory cuts.”
Nigel Edwards, chief executive of think tank Nuffield Trust, said it would mean the NHS could “breathe a sigh of relief”.
