Labour's Parliamentary candidate for Carlisle has welcomed promises set out by Keir Starmer to rebuild the NHS. 

In the Labour leader's plans, he promised to cut heart disease, cancer and suicide deaths if elected - as part of one of their 'five key missions'. 

NHS data shows that across the board, the service is struggling to meet waiting list targets.

Patients in Cumbria, particularly in Carlisle, are experiencing longer waits than the English average.

Across England, 64.5 per cent of patients have been on the waiting list for fewer than 18 weeks, but in the North Cumbria Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust, just 61.1 per cent of patients were seen within the 18-week target.

Julie Minns, who has a daughter training to be a nurse, commented on these NHS data figures, stating that the NHS is facing an unprecedented immediate crisis and a long-term challenge.

Commenting on NHS data that shows 34,363 people are on the waiting list for North Cumbria Trust, Julie Minns said: "The NHS is facing both an unprecedented immediate crisis and a long-term challenge. 

"The immediate crisis is a system at breaking point after 13 years of Conservative government that has run the health service into the ground. 

"The long-term challenge is to reform a system designed for the world of 1948, when the priority was providing short term treatment for infectious disease or injury, not caring for the large numbers of people with chronic long-term conditions we see today. 

"Labour will fix the immediate crisis and address the long-term challenge, ensuring the NHS is there for all of us when we need it," she said. 

The Parliamentary candidate is particularly passionate about the steps Labour is promising to take to halve the gap in healthy life expectancy after data found that residents in some areas of Carlisle could, on average, expect to live five years longer than residents in other areas.

"The reality of Conservative Britain is that the poorest 60 to 64-year-olds have the same level of bad health as the richest 90- year-olds.

"This is a waste of 30 healthy years for poorer people.

"Labour has promised a range of policies that will improve the life chances for everyone, including a free breakfast club in every primary school, mental health support in every school and a new legally-binding ‘Decent Homes Standard’ that will oversee retrofitting of 19 million homes to keep families warm rather than living in damp, mouldy conditions that give their children asthma," she said.