John, the NHS faces another winter crisis, and lives are at risk.

Research commissioned by the Liberal Democrats shows over one million patients have waited 12+ hours in A&E this year - a 20% increase from last year.

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This is a matter of life or death - long A&E delays have been linked to around 14,000 excess deaths last year.

With the Budget next week, we’re urgently calling on the Chancellor to winterproof the NHS.

Over the past seven years, the Government has announced an average of £376 million of emergency funding each year to tackle the NHS winter crisis.

Under the Liberal Democrat's proposal, a new Winter Taskforce would instead manage a ringfenced fund of £1.5 billion over the next four years, to build resilience in hospital wards, A&E departments, ambulance services and patient discharging.

Instead of emergency funding allocated at the last minute, this ring-fenced budget would allow NHS trusts to plan and allocate resources efficiently.

This would help break the deadly cycle of annual NHS winter crises.

Today, Daisy Cooper MP urged the Government to back our Winter Taskforce at Deputy Prime Minister’s Questions:

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The Conservatives left the NHS in a dreadful state. Patients have been forced into A&E because they can’t get the community care they need, like getting a GP appointment. Meanwhile, patients who are well enough to leave hospital can’t because they can’t get social care.

It’s why fixing the NHS and social care should be a top priority. The new Labour Government must be bolder.

We must winterproof the NHS now.