ITV Lorraine star sends dire warning to Keir Starmer: 'NHS is not financially viable'

ITV star Dr Hilary Jones has warned the NHS risks going under if Labour leader Keir Starmer doesn't take urgent action. In an exclusive interview with Daily Express, he had a three-pronged approach to saving the health service as Reform UK leader Nigel Farage calls increasingly for privatisation.

Jones, 72, had a dire message for Starmer and health secretary Wes Streeting after his own son - also an NHS GP - was attacked at work. "My son is a GP and he was attacked by someone wielding a knife. He's fine, but he's not alone," he said. "I would certainly crack down much harder on people who abuse the NHS. Doctors and nurses on the whole are very forgiving if they get assaulted.

"It isn't all that unusual, people making outrageous demands, taking it for granted. That should be punishable... if people can't appreciate the NHS they shouldn't be able to use it, in my opinion. That needs dealing with."

As well as urging the PM to recruit and retain more GPs, the Lorraine star called for doctors and nurses on the frontline to be rewarded and for the revolving door of middle-management to be swiftly dealt with.

"Managers that fail and then get employed somewhere else in the same capacity, that frustrates me enormously.

"And I think doctors themselves need to look at what they want to do. If they can't thoroughly embrace and enjoy the job, go and do something else."

In Jones' opinion, the NHS is as good as doomed if changes aren't made. The Lorraine star - who has just released his third fiction book covering the creation of the National Health Service after WW2 - said it will "go from bad to worse".

"Going back to 1948 when the NHS was created, it was created for people who couldn't afford any medical care. It was for emergency cases, for people who were very ill indeed who couldn't afford any medical care. It was for major stuff, for life-threatening disease.

"Now it tries to be everything to everyone. People expect so much from the NHS - free transportation, every operation under the sun. It just isn't financially possible any more.

"We just don't put enough money in to provide everything that everybody wants. We've already got rationing but it's still not enough.

"We have to decide what we want the NHS to do - do we want it for the most important things, or do we want it for everything, In which case it's just going to go bankrupt. Tough decisions have to be made. We have to decide what it is going to become in the future.

"The problem is that no political party has the guts to make that decision because they're frightened of losing votes, so until it's taken out of party politics those tough decisions won't be made."

Dr Hilary Jones' new book Under Darkening Skies is available now.