Defector MP Dan Poulter says Tories not listening over NHS

A Conservative MP who has defected to Labour says the government is not listening to his NHS concerns.

Dan Poulter, MP for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich, said the Conservative government sometimes wanted to "deny a reality".

Dr Poulter, who works part-time as a doctor, told BBC Look East he had tried to raise concerns from inside the party.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said he thought Dr Poulter was "wrong".

The former health minister, who announced over the weekend that he was defecting, said it had not been an easy decision.

"Alongside working as a diligent constituency MP, I have always worked as a hospital doctor," he said.

"During the junior doctors' strike, for 14 months or so, I have been working on the front line, doing a lot of night shifts.

"And the experiences I saw during those times on the front line, seeing the challenges faced by patients, have meant that it has become increasing difficult for me to look my constituents in the eye, my medical colleagues in the eye and my patients in the eye with good conscience."

On raising his concerns within the party, he said: "I have tried.

"I have spoken openly and honestly, in an independent way ... about my concerns about the NHS for a long time.

"And I found the Conservative government has not listened and want sometimes to deny a reality on the front line about patients in pain; about patients waiting many months and years for operations.

"For me, that is unconscionable."

Dr Poulter, who was elected in 2010, said he had to decide whether or not to stand down.

He said he hoped a general election would be called in a "very short" period.

"But in good conscience, in professional conscience, as a doctor, the health service of today that I see is so radically different from the one of maybe 10 or 15 years ago, certainly when I was in full-time medicine, that it would be a disservice to my constituents to not say that actually that health service has not been well run by a Conservative government," he said.

"I believe a Labour government would provide a better way forward for my patients."

Tom Hunt, Conservative MP for Ipswich, said Dr Poulter's defection had been a surprise. "It was a bit of a bolt out of the blue," he told BBC Radio Suffolk. "He was elected as a Conservative Member of Parliament with a 24,000 majority. "There will be a lot of people who voted for him as a Conservative at the last election because of the fact that he was a Conservative, who will feel disappointed.

"I think there are a number of local Conservatives who feel very disappointed and let down by what he has done." He said he would still work with Dr Poulter.

Mr Sunak said he thought Dr Poulter was wrong and the Conservative government's record on the NHS was "one of investment".

"I think he was wrong. You look at our record on the NHS... it's one of investment," Mr Sunak told the BBC.

"Actually, after a difficult few years because of the pandemic, the NHS is very much on the road to recovery".

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