Blair tackled on NHS morale

Mr Blair meets disgruntled NHS workers in King's Lynn

Labour leader Tony Blair has came face-to-face with disgruntled hospital workers including a senior doctor who told him NHS morale was at "rock bottom".

During visits to two hospitals, Mr Blair admitted he had seen the "good and bad" sides of the health service.

We feel the standard of care we give the patients is not as good as it should be

Consultant surgeon Nicholas Packer

It came two days after he was harangued by the partner of a cancer patient at a hospital in Birmingham.

At the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, in King's Lynn, consultant surgeon Nicholas Packer told the prime minister: "If nurses and doctors are demoralised, the standard of care we give patients is not as good as they expect.

"How are you going to raise morale which is desperately low?"

Expectations

And he added: "The government has raised public expectations so high that it reflects on us."

Mr Blair replied that people had wanted waiting lists to be cut but agreed there needed to be "direction" behind the move.

Cherie Blair joined in the hospital tour

Mr Blair later met midwife Hayley Barnes who complained that the hospital was not able to offer a midwife to stay with a woman throughout her labour.

He told her that it would take some years to see the impact of putting more money into the health service.

The prime minister was later joined by his wife, Cherie, before the couple chatted to children recovering from treatments.

Mr Blair signed the plastercast of three-year-old Jame Orme who broke his left arm falling out of a bed.

Shortages

Earlier, the prime minister had visited the Pilgrim Hospital, in Boston, Lincs, where he chatted to people who had been waiting more than an hour for an X-ray.

He was told there were only three radiography staff on duty instead of the usual eight because of staff shortages.

The prime minister toured the state-of-the-art casualty department, which opened two years ago at a cost of £1.5 m.

About 30 demonstrators, ranging from pro-countryside protesters to anti-hunt campaigners, jeered the Mr Blair as he arrived at a research centre in Norwich on Friday evening for a question and answer session with health service workers.

Protesters

A handful of police looked on as the prime minister's car pulled up at an entrance 50 yards away from where the protesters were expecting him to stop.

He told the meeting Labour faced a huge problem when it came to power.

"Virtually every hospital trust was in deficit, the number of training places had been cut and there was virtually no capital investment."

He said there was no other way than to continue investing in the health service over the next few years.

"All I can say is that it will take time to deliver it. In the meantime I know that it is very pressurised and difficult. The only way is to get the money in."

"We have to get the staff and bricks and mortar in place that give us some prospect for the future."