TENS of thousands of people have demanded that Prime Minister Rishi Sunak stop pitting NHS workers and patients against each other.

As junior doctors entered the second day of a six-day strike yesterday, television presenter Stephen Fry, comedian Jo Brand, fellow comedian and former NHS doctor Adam Kay and poet Michael Rosen were among some 73,000 people revealed to have signed an open letter calling on the government to act to “get waiting times falling immediately.”

They said that millions of people were “getting sicker while waiting” and that the situation was causing them “anxiety and uncertainty” on the first anniversary of Mr Sunak’s claim that cutting the NHS waiting list was one of his top priorities.