MATT Hancock today blasted Labour’s “irresponsible scaremongering” after the party’s health boss wrongly claimed the number of cancelled operations has rocketed.
Labour’s Jonathan Ashworth toured the telly studios to claim there had been a “huge increase” in recent years.
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But in a humiliating U-turn live on-air, he admitted the number of cancellations have actually gone down in the past year.
It came health chiefs blasted politicians for trying to “weaponise” the NHS in the battle for votes.
The number of cancelled ops actually fell by 3 per cent in the past year, from 81,565 in 2017/18 to 78,981 in 2018/19.
Pressed on the numbers on BBC Radio 4 Today Programme, the Labour frontbencher admitted: “It’s slightly gone down.”
Mr Hancock blasted the shadow cabinet minister for “irresponsible scaremongering”.
The Health Secretary added: “Labour uses NHS as political football and sticks it straight into back of their own net.”
The embarrassing blunder came after NHS boss Chris Hopson begged MPs to stop using attacks on the health service for “cheap political slogans we have seen over the last four or five election campaigns”.
He said politicians can talk about the state of the NHS.
But he added: “Let’s be careful of weaponisng that performance as a means of advancing a particular political argument and by doing so demonising staff who are working incredibly hard.”
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He also hit back at Labour’s claims there is no role for the private sector in the NHS, pointing out that privately-run hospices give “fantastic” care to patients.
Mr Corbyn has spent weeks trying to stick the boot into the Tories by warning they want to sell off parts of the NHS to the US as part of a post Brexit trade deal.
The claims have been furiously denied by Donald Trump and Boris Johnson.
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