Sir Ed Davey has set out plans to “winterproof the NHS”, calling for a taskforce to be established to end the annual winter crises facing the health service.
The Liberal Democrat leader used his conference speech to urge Sir Keir Starmer to “make this year the last winter crisis in our NHS”.
After opening the speech by singing Take a Chance on Me by ABBA, Sir Ed pointed to the £376m which is spent on average each year tackling the winter crisis in the NHS, calling instead for the cash to be invested in shoring up the service.
His proposed taskforce would spend £1.5bn in the next four years to build resilience in hospital wards, A&E departments, ambulance services and patient discharging.
Addressing activists and MPs gathered in Brighton, Sir Ed said: “Practically every year I can remember, governments have ended up announcing hundreds of millions of pounds of emergency funding to help the NHS through another winter crisis. To paper over the cracks.
“What if – instead of stumbling from crisis to crisis, instead of throwing more and more money at just plugging the gaps – we invested now, to make the NHS winterproof?
“The government could and should make this year the last winter crisis in our NHS.
“So I urge Labour: do not make the same mistakes the Conservative Party did. Be more positive. Act now. Show the ambition and urgency this moment demands – and save our NHS now.”
The speech marks the end of a conference which has seen the Lib Dems set out plans to leapfrog the Tories as Britain’s second-biggest party at the next general election.
Months after the party surged to its best result on record, with 72 MPs elected, Sir Ed promised to “repay in full” the trust that voters put in his party.
He said: “People’s trust isn’t something you just win and put in the bank, to make a withdrawal at the next election.
“Trust is something you have to keep winning, keep earning, day after day after day. Or else people will just take it somewhere else.”
Opening the conference on Saturday, Sir Ed arrived on a jet ski, continuing a string of eye-catching activities that started during the general election campaign. He has also played volleyball and tennis and rode a rollercoaster.
But he revealed that some stunts were off limits during the general election, telling the conference: “It was only health and safety rules that stopped me putting my hand up a cow’s behind or wing walking on a biplane.”
Sir Ed’s speech was heavily focused on the NHS, but he took the time to attack the Tory leadership candidates vying to replace Rishi Sunak.
He said: “Just look at the quartet heading to Birmingham in a fortnight to audition for the job of Conservative leader.
“They really are scraping the bottom of the barrel with these new TV reality shows, aren’t they?”
Sir Ed’s criticism of Labour was lighter, condemning the “pessimism and defeatism” of Sir Keir’s government so far and urging him to “be more positive now”.
He also attacked Labour for not mentioning carers in its manifesto or in the prime minister’s King’s Speech.
Given the strong anti-Brexit sentiment among Lib Dem MPs and activists, Sir Ed also urged the government to “fix Britain’s broken relationship with Europe”. He repeated calls for Sir Keir to reconsider ruling out rejoining the single market, and added to the growing pressure on the government to negotiate with the EU a free movement deal for young people.
Journalists have been repeatedly briefed at the conference about the Lib Dems’ plans to overtake the Tories. They are just 49 seats away from becoming the official opposition to Sir Keir’s government, and of the 27 seats in which the Lib Dems came second in July, 21 have Tory MPs.
“Let’s finish the job,” Sir Ed told MPs and activists. Throwing down the gauntlet to the Conservatives, he said: “What a great chance we have next May, at county council elections in places like Devon and Surrey.
“Places with Conservative councils that have let people down for far too long.
“And places where we did rather well in July – and where we could do even better next time.”