THE MP for Westmorland and Lonsdale Tim Farron put NHS understaffing 'at the feet of the Tories.' 

Today the cross-party Health and Social Care Committee released a report outlining the scale of the staffing issue that NHS trusts across Cumbria and the rest of England face. 

They said that services in England face 'the greatest workforce crisis in their history' and that the Government has no credible strategy to make the situation better. 

The UK is short of 12,000 hospital doctors and more than 50,000 nurses and midwives. 

This was based on research by the Nuffield Trust, which said that an extra 475,000 jobs will be needed in health and 490,000 jobs in social care in the next decade to make up the shortfall. 

According to the report, in the past year, 552 midwives have left the profession.

Tim Farron responded to this by blaming the last twelve years of Conservative rule and the effects of austerity: "The blame for the understaffing crisis in the NHS can be placed squarely at the feet of the Conservative government.

"NHS staff are working tirelessly to compensate for the effects of years of austerity and cuts to our national health service by the Tories."

In response to this, Mr Farron was asked about the Liberal Democrats being in power with the Conservatives when austerity measures were first introduced. 

Mr Farron argued that this does not mitigate the policies that the Conservatives have introduced during their seven years as a majority government: "At a local level, we know that already over half of the patients find it difficult to get a GP appointment over the phone and waiting times for cancer treatment are astronomical. 

"The government has to increase pay for health care professionals and make it a more attractive profession for students and to fill the hundreds of thousands of vacancies we currently have. 

"On the watch of the Tories, we are seeing patients being forced into taking up private health care which is barbaric and disgraceful especially when you think that they are already having to pay more for food, fuel and energy."