London: Britain's overcrowded public health system is dominating the final days of the general election campaign after Prime Minister Boris Johnson stumbled over an evocative photograph of a child forced to sleep on a hospital floor.

Four-year-old Jack Williment was rushed to Leeds General Infirmary with suspected pneumonia but had to wait for more than four hours on a pile of coats because the hospital had run out of beds.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson on the campaign trail ahead of Thursdays election.Credit:Getty

The image, which was splashed across the front page of a UK tabloid paper, instantly symbolised the problems facing the National Health Service, which is struggling to cope with budget cuts, massive waiting times and the winter flu season.

Shown the picture during a television interview, Johnson initially refused to look and even took reporter Joe Pike's phone and put it in his pocket.

"You refuse to look at the photo. You've taken my phone and put it in your pocket, Prime Minister," Pike said. "His mother says the NHS is in crisis. What's your response to that?"

Johnson then took Pike's phone back out of his pocket, looked at the screen and said: "It's a terrible, terrible photo, and I apologise, obviously." Johnson also later apologised for taking the phone.

The issue captured so much attention ahead of Thursday's general election that the Conservatives dispatched Health Secretary Matt Hancock to the hospital in Leeds to manage the fallout.

"It's not good enough and I have apologised," Hancock said.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who has made the government's record on health a central plank of his campaign strategy, leapt on the incident as proof the NHS was struggling.

"Its an example of what's happening in our NHS and it's obviously awful for that little boy and his family, the way they were treated, but it does say something about our NHS when this can happen," Corbyn said on Tuesday.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has made health a central plank of his campaign.Credit:Getty

While the Conservatives are favoured to win Thursday's poll, health is a particularly sensitive topic for the party.

A recent Ipsos Mori poll found the NHS is just three points behind Brexit as the top issue on voters’ minds going into the election.

The Royal College of Emergency Medicine surveyed 50 trusts and health boards across the UK and found more than 38,000 patients waited longer than 12 hours for a bed since the beginning of October.

"These figures are truly shocking and are terrible for patients and staff alike. Many patients are now getting often life-changing news while stranded on a trolley in a corridor," said the president of the college Katherine Henderson.

In an attack that bears the hallmarks of Bill Shorten's controversial 2016 'Mediscare" tactic', Corbyn has repeatedly claimed Johnson had "put the National Health service up for sale" or would "sell" the system.

Former Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull has urged Johnson to confront the “absurd” claims, warning his own experience with 'Mediscare' proved "even the most implausible, ridiculous lie" can derail an election campaign.

Corbyn's claim that the NHS would be sold is based on concerns that British hospitals could pay more for drugs under any new trade deal with the US following the UK's departure from the European Union – something Turnbull said was "not even remotely approaching privatisation".

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