A SCREAMING woman derailed an interview with the Health Secretary yesterday after she yelled "people have died" and "you've done b***er all" in his face.
A shocking video captured the passer-by's furious rant and Steve Barclay's stunned reaction as he spoke outside Moorfields Eye Hospital in Old Street, central London.
In the clip, the Cabinet minister is speaking to a PA journalist in the street when he is abruptly approached by the stranger.
The unknown woman is visibly seething as she confronts him about ambulance waiting times.
At first the Health Secretary – who took up his new post in July – tries to ignore her before she completely stops him in his tracks.
Her voice quavers in anger and her arms wave as she spits out her words.
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The woman demands: "Are you going to do anything about the ambulances waiting, and the people dying out?"
Mr Barclay is shocked but tries to dismiss her by saying, "Of course we are".
The passer-by then continues, staring at him intensely, "Don't you think 12 years is long enough?"
After a pause the spiteful woman goes on in anger: "Twelve years – you've done b***er all about it.
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"People have died, and all you've done is nothing."
She finished her monologue with a dramatic delivery and stormed off onto the opposite pavement in fury.
Mr Barclay turns back to the camera filming him visibly stunned by the interruption.
He composes himself with an awkward smile before continuing the interview.
The Health Secretary goes on to say that reducing ambulance waiting times is an "absolute priority" for the Tory government who have been in power for the last 12 years.
The enraged woman raised an ongoing criticism of the ambulance services in the UK.
In May The Sun on Sunday revealed how your postcode can add up to 30 minutes to the length of time you could face waiting for an ambulance.
Staff shortages and funding cuts have been blamed for the deadly lottery of 999 waiting times that could prove fatal for critically ill heart attack and stroke patients.
Patients in Wales have even waited 30 hours to reach A&E, while one woman had to make her own way to hospital after suffering from a life-threatening seizure.
Last month all ten ambulance services in England reached the worts level of alert – operating at REAP level four due to the unrelenting pressure across NHS services.
This is the rarely used highest level alert – known as Resource Escalation Action Plan (REAP).
Meanwhile, ambulance services in Scotland are at alert level 3.
Bosses warned phone services are chock-a-block and that people should not call 999 back to find out where the ambulance is unless the patient’s condition has changed.
Following his sudden silencing in the street yesterday, Mr Barclay told the PA news agency that the government was taking a range of measures to tackle the problem.
These included pummelling an extra £150m in funding to the ambulance service, as well as a further £50m into call centres and £30m into St John Ambulance.
He said: "We're also then looking at what happens with the ambulance handovers, so emergency departments, how we triage those, how we look at the allocation of this within the system.
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"Of course, that is all connected to delayed discharge and people being ready to leave hospital who are not doing so, and that's about the integration of care between social care and hospitals.
"So there's a range of issues within how we deliver on ambulances, but it's an absolute priority both for the government and for NHS England."
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