Dominic Raab struggled to answer as Nick Ferrari blamed the Conservatives for public confidence in the NHS plummeting.
The 2022 British Social Attitudes survey showed that just over a quarter (29%) said they were satisfied with how the service runs.
That is the lowest ever level and marks a steep decline since the 70% satisfaction level in 2010, when Labour were last in office.
On LBC this morning, presenter Nick Ferrari told the deputy prime minister that the drop “lands squarely on your watch”.
He said: “I have to remind you, as you’re probably aware, 13 or so years ago, public confidence in the NHS was at an all-time high.
“What’s happened over the last 13 years? Oh hang on, the penny’s dropped. It’s been a Conservative or Conservative-led government. This lands squarely on your watch, doesn’t it deputy prime minister?
Bizarrely, Raab tried to blame it all on the Covid-19 pandemic, even though that only started in 2020.
He said: “Well you didn’t mention the small matter of the global pandemic and the impact that Covid had, not just on the NHS directly, but on the backlogs.
“The NHS staff do a terrific job, we’re putting record levels of funding into it, the waiting lists are down by 64% since the pandemic peak.
“But the combination of more staff, more resource and also the reforms the health secretary’s been talking about will get back the levels of patient trust and confidence and satisfaction that we all need to see.”