The NHS will be safer under the Tories than Jeremy Corbyn but he was RIGHT to call it a ‘humanitarian crisis’, poll shows
People would also be prepared to pay more tax if it went straight to the health service, and most people are unhappy with Jeremy Hunt's performance as Health Secretary
VOTERS think Britain's National Health Service is safer under the Conservatives than under Jeremy Corbyn's Labour, a new poll says.
Research by ComRes for the Sunday Mirror and the Independent found that 43% think Theresa May is better off managing the NHS, compared to just 31% who thought Labour would be.
But almost half of voters thought that the Labour leader was right to repeat the Red Cross' warning that the NHS was in a "humanitarian crisis" - 47% of voters agreed.
The news comes as The Observer report that even cancer operations are being cancelled now as the crisis in the health service becomes clear.
The past fortnight has seen chronic bed shortages, a drastic increase in patients coming to A&E and agonising waits.
Three NHS chiefs, all earning more than the Prime Minister’s £149,000 salary, saw their pay and pensions increase as their organisations hit a deficit, figures show.
It comes as the British Medical Association yesterday accused ministers of trying to “scapegoat” doctors by demanding they move to a seven-day service — rather than addressing deep-rooted underfunding of the NHS.
Top Tory MP Dr Sarah Wollaston said Mrs May was "entirely wrong" to blame doctors for the crisis and accused her of using them as a "scapegoat".
And Helen Stokes-Lampard, chair of the Royal College of GPs, told Peston on Sunday that doctors were "demoralised" by the PM's warning.
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Voters are also turning on Jeremy Hunt, the Health Secretary, too.
Just 12% think he's doing a good job, and 53% think he's going a poor job - a 16 point increase since 2013.
Even Tory voters as a whole agree - 35% think he's doing badly too.
The poll showed that 53% of voters would be prepared to pay more tax to fund the health service, and 42% would pay more if it went towards mental health care.
The Mail on Sunday revealed that three quarters of people want ministers to divert Britain's foreign aid budget to the NHS.
, a former head of the civil service, says today that the Government are not facing up to the realities facing hospitals and staff.
He writes in the Observer that Mrs May must "listen and act on inconvenient advice".
He backed NHS boss Simon Stevens who last week said the PM was "stretching the truth" over health funding.
He writes: "Additional funding now, together with a concerted move to eliminate the deficits that NHS trusts are currently carrying, is essential."