EAST Hampshire’s Labour Party candidate spoke about her own heartfelt experiences with the NHS during a hustings event in Bordon on Monday night.

In response to a question by Virginia Kennedy, who asked why 1p is being taken off tax and National Insurance “when the NHS is desperate for money”, Gaynor Austin told a packed room of residents about her daughter’s mental health issues and said: “At one point she was put under section in a Brighton hospital and was able to just walk out, simply because the hospital was understaffed.”

Her daughter later stayed in a secure unit for a week but received “no treatment, was let out, only to be back in A&E in a life critical situation a few days later”.

Ms Austin continued: “The staff were run off their feet. I, while looking for somebody, saw a poor woman who must have been about 90 lying in a cubicle, crying for staff because nobody was responding to the buzzer.”

This is “not the fault of staff”, she said, but instead the “Conservatives and Lib Dems in coalition”.

And while Tory candidate Damian Hinds said it was “very distressing” to hear about Ms Austin’s experiences, his own “overwhelming experience has been absolutely phenomenal”.

But he added “things do sometimes go wrong”, and admitted he’d had “bad experiences” when both the Conservative and Labour parties were in government.

Mr Hinds said there’s “more money today in the NHS than there’s ever been”, but that it’s “important” to keep up resourcing to match the growth of demand.

Lib Dem candidate David Buxton said his party will be “investing more money than any other party”.

He added: “It’s particularly important we invest more money into the health services, into mental health, into your community. Let’s stop talking about the past, let’s move forward in the future in a positive way – that is what this election is all about.”