Keir Starmer begins work 'straight away' to end NHS crisis
New Prime Minister Starmer and Health Secretary Wes Streeting want to get waiting lists down
Health Secretary Wes Streeting will this week begin urgent talks with NHS leaders about delivering weekend and evening appointments, after Sir Keir Starmer vowed that work to slash the waiting lists “starts straight away”.
The Prime Minister wants Labour to fulfil its election pledge of 40,000 extra NHS appointments each week by the end of the year.
Managers at hospitals which have already stepped up weekend working, including Guy’s and St Thomas’ in London, will meet health colleagues nationwide to explain how they did it.
Sir Keir said: “We will use them around the country now, and they have agreed to this. They will go across the country to be deployed to help set up the model in other hospitals as quickly as we can.
“We have already had some discussions about how that will be rolled out from day one.”
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Mr Streeting will have “several” meetings with hospital trusts and NHS England officials this week. It is part of a drive by the Government to convince voters it is acting swiftly to end the crisis in the NHS, which currently has a waiting list of 7.57 million appointments.
Mr Streeting is also due to talk this week with junior doctors over ending strike action, after an initial phone call with members of the BMA junior doctors committee on Friday.
And tomorrow he will meet the British Dental Association about plans to provide 700,000 emergency dentistry appointments as soon as possible.
But the Government is braced for a series of huge challenges during its first 100 days.
Sir Keir will hold talks on Tuesday with metro mayors representing areas such as the West Midlands, Greater Manchester and Liverpool, as part of a drive to promote economic growth across the country.
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Chancellor Rachel Reeves and Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds will begin discussions with employers and trade unions to develop an industrial strategy to grow the economy, with a particular emphasis on attracting investment for “green” industries.
While Sir Keir does not expect the strategy itself to excite voters, he hopes to increase wages and convince the public their standard of living has risen under Labour, which the Prime Minister sees as essential to securing a second term in office.
The Prime Minister and Defence Secretary John Healey will travel to a Nato summit beginning on Tuesday, where they aim to gather intelligence about Donald Trump’s intentions if he wins the US Presidential election in November.
Sir Keir is due to speak with incumbent US President Joe Biden at the event, after the pair had a phone conversation last week.
But behind the scenes the UK delegation will be talking to people with insight into how US policy could change under a second Trump administration, amid fears Trump could cut American support for Ukraine.
And they will send a message to the Republican Presidential hopeful, who has long complained that the US is paying more than its fair share for the defence of Europe, by urging European Nato members to do “more of the heavy lifting”.