The Tories broke the NHS in ways that were “unforgivable”, Keir Starmer has said ahead of a damning report into the state of the health service.

Speaking to the BBC, the PM said a review to be published on Thursday found Tory changes to the NHS were “hopelessly misconcieved.” And he said years of austerity followed by the pandemic had left the NHS in an “awful position.”

Lord Darzi’s review is expected to reveal shocking new figures on the treatment of children, with 100,000 infants left waiting for more than six hours in A&E last year. Meanwhile there was a 60% rise in waiting times for infants over the last 15 years, and around 800,000 children and young people are now on NHS waiting lists for hospital treatment.

“Everybody watching this who has used the NHS, or relatives have, know that it’s broken. They know that it’s broken, that is unforgivable, the state of our NHS,” Mr Starmer said in the interview to be broadcast on Sunday at 9am on BBC One.

He said Lord Darzi will claim the problems now being seen in the NHS come from, "the money that was taken out of the NHS, particularly in the early years of the coalition from 2010 onwards, the Lansley reforms, which were hopelessly misconceived, and then of course COVID on top of all that, which has put us in this awful position for the NHS."

He added: It’s the last government broke the NHS. Our job now through Lord Darzi is properly understand how that came about and bring about the reforms, starting with the first steps, the 40,000 extra appointments.

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“But we’ve got to do the hard yards of reform as well. And as I say, I think it’s only a Labour Government that can do the reform that our NHS needs, and we’ll start on that journey.”

The full contents of the Darzi report will be published on Thursday. But it’s also likely to highlight falling vaccination rates, a 10% annual growth rate in prescriptions for ADHD medications for children and an 82% increase in hospital admissions for children with eating disorders since 2019-20.

Children from the most deprived backgrounds are twice as likely to be obese by the time they go to primary school. And the report will find life-threatening or life-limiting conditions among children are up by 40% over the last twenty years.