CONSERVATIVE Government cuts are to blame for exposing NHS services to the cyber-attack, which hit computers around the world on Friday, Jeremy Corbyn has said.

The Labour leader was speaking as he set out a promise to provide an extra £37 billion for the NHS in England, with measures aimed at improving A&E performance and taking one million patients off waiting lists.

Mr Corbyn told the Royal College of Nursing conference in Liverpool that he understood the anger of nurses who made clear in a poll this weekend they were ready to stage a summer of protests across the UK over pay.

Nurses had suffered cuts in the value of their pay over recent years, said Mr Corbyn, adding: "We will not put you in that position. We will lift the public-sector pay cap and hand back decisions on pay to an independent review body."

Mr Corbyn said Labour would deliver an additional £7.4bn a year for the NHS over the course of the next five-year parliament, including a total of £10bn in capital funding to modernise buildings and IT systems.

This would cut waiting lists by one million by 2022 and allow A&E departments to hit their four-hour target for waits, he said.

Stressing how Labour would restore training bursaries for nurses, the party leader said: “We are ready to step in and save the NHS from the cuts and privatisation that have happened over the last seven years.

"Our health service is being dismantled by stealth. Over the last seven years, our NHS has been driven into crisis after crisis.

"A&E departments struggling to cope. Waiting lists soaring. And - as we saw last week - the Tory cuts have exposed patient services to cyber-attack."

Mr Corbyn described the malware attack on NHS computer systems as "highway robbery against all of us", adding: "We have to have investment in the NHS to protect all the systems so we are not held to ransom by criminals."

Labour's plans involve a target to tackle bed-blocking and a new guarantee that patients with the most urgent needs are seen within an hour at A&E departments south of the border.

The measures, being set out by Mr Corbyn and Jonathan Ashworth, the Shadow Health Secretary, will see Labour commit to meeting the existing 18-week waiting list target and the four-hour A&E goal in England.

A new £500 million fund will help ensure the NHS avoids a winter crisis and 2.5m cancer patients will be helped by delivering in full the cancer strategy for England.

Mr Ashworth told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that raising taxes for those earning more than £80,000 would raise up to £4.5bn, all of which would go towards the NHS.

Some money will come from Labour's "national transformation fund" for capital expenditure and the previously-announced plan to lift the one per cent cap on pay rises will also be funded from corporation tax.

Labour said in total the plans represented a cash boost of £37bn for the English NHS across the course of the five-year parliament.

The waiting list for NHS treatments stood at 3.7m at March 2017 compared to 2.4m at March 2010.

By resourcing hospitals to deliver the 18-week referral to treatment target, Labour plans to bring waiting lists back down to 2010 levels, taking one million people off the waiting list by 2022.

But a Conservative spokesman said: "Jeremy Corbyn can't deliver any of this because his nonsensical economic policies would damage our economy and mean less money for the NHS, not more.

"Just look at Wales where Labour cut funding for the NHS.

"We are putting an extra £10 billion into the NHS and with strong and stable leadership from Theresa May, we will be able to secure the strong economy our NHS needs."

Elsewhere, Theresa May said Labour would "wreck the economy", which would mean less money for the NHS.

"What we've seen over the last few years under a Conservative government is record amounts of funding going into the National Health Service. We see more doctors in the National Health Service, we see more midwives, more GPs, more nurses in the NHS,” insisted the Prime Minister.

She added: "The thing about the Labour Party's proposals is that you have to ask the question: where would the money come from?

"Because you can only fund the NHS, you can only ensure we have a first class NHS, if we have a strong economy to have the funding to put into the NHS."

Norman Lamb for the Liberal Democrats said: "You cannot solve the crisis in our NHS and social-care services by simply imposing more top-down targets on staff and plucking numbers out of thin air.

"The Liberal Democrats are the only party with a fully-costed plan to deliver £6bn more per year for the NHS and social care by putting a penny on income tax.

"This is a plan endorsed by senior health experts including the former head of NHS England David Nicholson.”

The party’s health spokesman added: "We will be honest with the public that giving the NHS and social care the funding they need will mean us all chipping in a little more."