The Health Hustings that Islington Keep our NHS public organised has been cancelled because the Labour and Conservative candidates would not attend. The Green and Liberal Democrat candidates and the Independent, Jeremy Corbyn all accepted. But without the candidates from the two major parties it was decided not to go ahead on 26 June as planned. We were extremely disappointed that they did not give people in Islington the chance to question their parliamentary candidates about their ideas on the pressing issues facing the NHS and social care that the Health Hustings would have provided.

Islington KONP chair, Frances Bradley, said: ‘We at Islington Keep Our NHS Public are hugely disappointed that Islington’s Labour and Conservative candidates did not want to take the opportunity to present their party’s standpoint on the NHS in a face to face meeting.   What kind of democracy is it if those who want to represent us won’t talk to us about health when it is such a central issue of the election?  The problems facing the NHS and social care are complex and long-term and we have the right to a proper public discussion about it. We believe the candidates who declined to take part are ignoring widespread public concern and are seeking to avoid legitimate scrutiny of their party’s health policies’.