The NHS is broken, says Streeting

The NHS is broken, the new Health Secretary has declared.

Wes Streeting made the analysis just an hour after being appointed, and said it was now the Department of Health’s official policy.

Mr Streeting also announced that he would start talks with the unions next week over ending the junior doctors’ strikes.

He said: “This Government will be honest about the challenges facing our country, and serious about tackling them. From today, the policy of this department is that the NHS is broken.

“That is the experience of patients who are not receiving the care they deserve, and of the staff working in the NHS who can see that – despite giving their best – this is not good enough.”

Labour has put NHS reform at the heart of its agenda. It has been a topic the party has struggled to tackle in the past, with many of its supporters ideologically resistant to any attempt to change the health service and considering the main problem it faces to be a lack of funds.

However, Mr Streeting’s words suggest that Sir Keir Starmer, the new Prime Minister, is keen to use the political capital of his landslide win to address the problems facing the NHS, which is still struggling with record waiting lists.

They also raise the possibility that Labour could replace Richard Meddings, the Tory-appointed NHS chairman, and even look at the position of Amanda Pritchard, the NHS chief executive.

In his first speech in the job, Mr Streeting acknowledged that the health service’s performance was “not good enough”. But he also warned that it could not be “fixed overnight” after going through “the biggest crisis in its history” following the Covid pandemic.

Junior doctors have been striking for more than a year in a dispute over pay, which has hampered efforts to cut record waiting lists.

The British Medical Association (BMA), the doctors’ union, has demanded a 35 per cent pay rise to make up for what it says are 15 years of below-inflation increases under the Tories.

Mr Streeting has already said that he will not agree to their demand, which he has described as unaffordable, but is prepared to negotiate. During the election campaign, Labour criticised the Tories for failing to meet the unions to end the dispute.

The BMA has been criticised after calling strikes during the election campaign, even though neither party was able to negotiate with it.

“When we said that patients are being failed on a daily basis, it wasn’t political rhetoric but the daily reality faced by millions,” said Mr Streeting. “Previous governments have not been willing to admit these simple facts. But in order to cure an illness, you must first diagnose it.

“We promised during the campaign that we would begin negotiations as a matter of urgency, and that is what we are doing. This Government has received a mandate from millions of voters for change and reform of the NHS so it can be there for us when we need it once again.”

Mr Streeting has repeatedly pledged to push through wide-ranging reforms to how the NHS works rather than just pouring more money into the system. His plan includes making maximum use of spare capacity in the private sector to clear the backlog, which has now reached 6.33 million patients.

He has also pledged to overhaul how the GP system works, introducing health hubs that will provide evening care and walk-in services at weekends.

The new Health Secretary has been blunt in his assessment of the care the service provides, saying he will not “pretend the NHS is the envy of the world”.

He referred to his own experience with the health service, saying: “When I was diagnosed with kidney cancer, the NHS saved my life. Today, I can begin to repay that debt by saving our NHS.”