Only Fools and Horses star gives up after 10 hour A&E wait amid cancer treatment

29 August 2023 , 13:21

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Only Fools and Horses star gives up after 10 hour A&E wait amid cancer treatment

Only Fools and Horses actor Patrick Murray, 66, has declared "the NHS needs fixing, not hollow promises" after waiting 10 hours in A&E only to give up and go home.

The actor, best known for playing Mickey Pearce in the BBC comedy, shared in April how his lung cancer had returned just months on from getting the all clear last year. He has since announced the disease how now spread to his pelvis and legs and "also entered my lymphatic system."

Taking to Elon Musk's X - aka Twitter - in the early hours of Tuesday morning, Patrick shared his recent experience of the NHS with his followers on the social media site. He wrote: "Ten hours waiting in A&E is unacceptable. I gave up and went home. The workers are wonderful, but the system is seriously flawed. The NHS needs fixing, not hollow promises."

One Twitter user replied to the actor's tweet, writing: "Maybe try the doctors or pharmacist next time. A&E is full of people who don’t need to be there and could use alternatives. You said yourself you gave up and went home which suggests it wasn’t urgent." Patrick hit back, telling the insensitive replier: "I was sent there by the chemotherapy dept because I was running a fever . Infections can be very dangerous when you are on chemo. If you have any more patronising advice, maybe you should keep it to yourself . Good health."

Patrick Murray is best known for playing Mickey Pearse on Only Fools and Horses (BBC)

The actor pictured in London in 2019 (REX/Shutterstock)

The NHS has been neglected by the government and underfunded over recent years. From 2001-2010, when the Labour Party were in power, the proportion of people in Great Britain surveyed reporting satisfaction with the NHS generally increased to a peak of 70%. By March 2022, almost 12 years into the current Tory regin in 10 Downing Street, satisfaction had fallen to 36% and the NHS is now in crisis, thanks to a lack of funding and the government failing to negotiate with workers and prevent strikes.

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Speaking earlier this year, lifelong Tory Sir Rod Stewart said it is "time to give the Labour Party a go" at running the country and admitted to finding the current state of the NHS "heartbreaking". The Maggie May singer went on to personally pay for NHS patients to receive scans at his local hospital.

"There must be enough money in the coffers to pay up for these nurses," Sir Rod told Sky News in February as he visited patients who have benefitted from his kind donations at the Princess Alexandra Hospital in Harlow, Essex. He continued: ""Only two years ago we were clapping and now listen - they worked so hard."

Sir Rod went on to warn: "If we don't have the NHS, it will be like the United States. When you go into an emergency, they say, 'right, go through your documents' and it's unbelievable in America. It doesn't work there either, but I think it's working better than [it] is here at the moment - we must pull it together."

Zoe Delaney