Labour blames Conservative austerity for 120,000 excess deaths in party broadcast

Labour has blamed the Conservatives's policy of austerity for an excess 120,000 deaths in a new party political broadcast claiming the NHS is at "breaking point".

The video, which will be televised Wednesday, comes as the party prepares the ground for the potential of a general election being called in a bid to break the Brexit deadlock at Westminster.

Using actors portraying doctors, nurses and patients, Labour describes the pressures facing the health service following nine years of austerity in the broadcast as a "national emergency".

Referring to a study published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) in 2016, Labour includes the caption in its video: "Health and social care cuts have been linked to 120,000 excess deaths in England."

At the time, the paper identified that mortality rates in the UK have declined steadily in the nine years before 2010, but reversed sharply with the death rate growing again.

Commenting on the video, Labour's shadow health secretary, Jonathan Ashworth, said: "This is hard hitting, but it's time for the Tories to face up to the devastating consequences of what they've done.

"The NHS is one of the things that people love most about our country, it makes us all proud, but the Tories disastrous austerity policy has hit the NHS and the support services that people rely on.

"It's caused a national emergency where, shamefully, for the first since 1945, life expectancy is actually failing in some of the poorest areas.

"And just yesterday we heard a senior Tory ministers admit their botched universal credit roll out has forced even more people to food banks. This is a national emergency made in Downing Street for the Tories must answer for."

In response to the broadcast, James Cleverly, the deputy chairman of the Conservative Party, said: “This shows the desperate lengths the Labour Party will go to try to weaponise our NHS and talk down the amazing work it does every day.

"The fact Labour had to resort to hiring actors to deliver this shameful scaremongering says everything.

“The truth is it’s the Conservatives who have given our NHS the biggest cash increase in funding in its history, something we are only able to do because of our balanced approach to the public finances. We are proud of the fact our NHS has been rated as the best healthcare system of any advanced nation."