Families of people killed by NHS wait times deliver petition calling for end to NHS underfunding

Campaigners Samina Rahman with her grandsons Rayyan and Layth 10, Noah 6, and Mathew Hulbert deliver signatures to 10 Downing Street.

Families of people killed by NHS delays have sent Prime Minister Rishi Sunak a petition calling for better funding.

It carries 12,500 signatures and demands a £40billion increase to match the European average. A decade-long Tory squeeze has left a backlog of 7.6 million appointments and record waits. Among those handing in the petition to Downing Street was widowed Samina Rahman and her grandsons Rayyan, Layth and Noah.

Samina’s husband Iqbal, 58, had to wait an hour and 20 minutes for an ambulance when he began showing heart attack symptoms during a Christmas trip to Hereford in 2022. All ambulances were waiting at A&E wards and by the time one finally came, Iqbal had died.

Speech therapist Samina, from Birmingham, said: “It’s incredibly painful to talk about but we’re determined that people know the real-life impacts of starving our NHS of resources. I always thought that if I called an ambulance when I really needed one it would come. My trust was broken that night.”

Also handing over the petition was Mathew Hulbert, whose mum Jackie, 78, died of sepsis in hospital in Nun­eaton, Warks, after being left on her bedroom floor for 11 hours.

He said: “The NHS failed my mum when she needed it most. I will never forget the pain and indignity she endured in those 11 hours. I’m not angry at overworked NHS staff. The system has been broken by 13 years of under-investment.”

A spokesman for the Department of Health and Social Care said: “The Government is backing the NHS and social care with a record £14.1 billion this year and next to cut waiting lists and improve care – the biggest funding increase in history.

“To increase capacity in the NHS and help patients get the care they need as quickly as possible, we also provided £800 million of additional funding this winter.”