Rishi Sunak has been accused of “laughing in the face” of a voter who confronted him about problems with NHS waiting times in a blue wall seat.

After the woman told the Prime Minister he could “stop it all” as he went on a pre-election walkabout in Winchester, Mr Sunak laughed nervously then walked away from her

Labour said it showed Mr Sunak, a privately educated multi-millionaire, didn’t understand other people’s lives, while the Liberal Democrats called it “frankly shocking”.

The exchange was filmed by Sky News, which said the woman was a former NHS worker.

In it, Mr Sunak blamed medical staff striking for a waits backlog, telling the woman a recent improvement “just shows that when there aren’t strikes, we really can make progress”.

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The woman appeared unimpressed and told him: “You could make it all go back to how it used to be”, prompting a nervous burst of laughter from the PM.

She continued: “If you had a problem, you could go to the hospital. My daughter spent seven hours waiting.”

Walking briskly away, the Prime Minister said he was sorry to hear that and talked more to the woman, but kept going. 

The Tory majority in Winchester is just 985 over the LibDems, making it one of the most marginal seats in the country.

Just under 6.4million patients across England were waiting for routine hospital treatment in November, figures suggest, around 50,000 down from October.

However the NHS is still failing to hit most of its key performance targets.

Around 11,170 people in England were waiting more than 18 months to start routine hospital treatment at the end of November, up from 10,500 at the end of October.

A&E times also worsened, with only 69.4% of patients in England seen within four hours in December, down from 69.7% in November.

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Both Labour and the LibDems criticised Mr Sunak over the clip.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer told broadcasters: “It further reinforces I think what many people across the country think, that this Prime Minister doesn’t talk to people, doesn’t engage, doesn’t understand what so many people are going through.

“We have a terrible problem with our waiting lists and that is why we have been really clear that we would get rid of the non-dom tax status where the super-rich don’t pay their tax in this country and use that to bring down those waiting lists. 

“We have got a plan, we engage with people over our plan, we don’t laugh and walk away.”

Edinburgh Western LibDem MP Christine Jardine accused the Prime Minister of “laughing in the face of a former health worker whilst they are trying to explain to him the dire straits the NHS” is in, calling it “frankly shocking”.

The PM last year made cutting waiting lists one of the five key priorities of his leadership.

Elsewhere on the campaign trail, Mr Sunak told broadcasters in Eastleigh in Hampshire there would be “more to come” on tax cuts following the recent National Insurance cuts.

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt also hinted at tax cuts in his March budget on Thursday, when he said the “direction of travel” was for the UK to emulate successful low-tax economies.

Mr Sunak also said he was “determined” to get his Rwanda deportation legislation through Westminster despite stiff resistance in the House of Lords.

After MPs passed a Bill declaring Rwanda was a safe place to deport asylum seekers,

However former Scottish Tory leader Baroness Ruth Davidson told the BBC there are “dogs in the street that know” deportation flights are “probably never going to happen”.