The NHS will not get any more funding without reforming, Sir Keir Starmer has said as he laid out a 10-year plan to fix the health service.

The prime minister stressed his plans to build an NHS fit for the future “do not just mean putting more money in”, and will take a decade to complete.

Politics Live: Damning NHS report gives Starmer mandate for change

Delivering a speech at the King’s Fund in central London, he said: “We have to fix the plumbing before we turn on the taps.

“So, hear me when I say this, no more money without reform.”

The government has promised three “big shifts” in its approach to fix the NHS:

• Using more technology to create a “digital NHS”
• Shifting more care out of hospitals and into communities
• Moving from treating sickness to focusing on prevention

Describing problems in the NHS, Sir Keir said he wasn’t prepared to spend money “on agency staff who cost £5,000 a shift, on appointment letters which arrive after the appointment, or on paying for people to be stuck in hospital just because they can’t get the care they need in the community”.

“Tonight, there will be 12,000 patients in that very position – that’s enough to fill 28 hospitals.

“That isn’t just solved by more money, it’s solved by reform.”

Sir Keir was speaking as NHS performance stats dropped showing the overall waiting list for treatment remained unchanged in July, with an estimated 7.62 million procedures waiting to be carried relating to 6.39 million patients.

The list hit a record high in September 2023 with 7.77 million treatments, after which the figures fell for several months before rising in April, May and June of this year.

Dr Nick Murch, president of the Society for Acute Medicine, said the new NHS figures “demonstrate the scale of the short-term challenge”.

In a Q&A after his speech, the prime minister would not be drawn on how soon patients could expect to see improvements.

Asked by Sky News health correspondent Ashish Joshi what he would tell somebody who is ill now, Sir Keir said the success of his plans “is going to be measured in years, not months”.

He said: “I accept the challenge to me, which is that it’s going to take a long time, it’s going to be measured in years, not months, and we need to have something to say for someone who is ill now, which is getting the NHS back on its feet.

“But we can’t duck the long-term change.”

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The speech comes after a report commissioned by the new government found the NHS is in a “critical condition”, with record waiting lists and too much of its budget spent in hospitals.

The study, carried out by independent peer and surgeon Lord Darzi, argues the NHS is facing rising demand for care as people live longer in ill health, coupled with low productivity in hospitals and poor staff morale.

It criticises political decision-making under the Conservatives and the coalition government, including the impact of austerity, a “starvation of investment” and the reorganisation of the NHS under the 2012 Health and Social Care Act, which Lord Darzi called “a calamity without international precedent”.

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This meant the COVID pandemic came “when resilience was at an all-time low”, he said.

The report also said “long waits have become normalised”, cancer care lags behind other countries, and describes A&E as being “in an awful state”.

Sir Keir said the Tories “broke the NHS” and “only a Labour government” can reform it, adding that it must “reform or die”.

Porsche’s long-awaited Macan EV will finally hit US dealers on September 30th, and we’ve also just learned that it will have an EPA-certified range of 308 miles, or 288 for the “Turbo” version.

We’ve been waiting what seems like forever for the Porsche Macan to come out – Seth even got to go see it in Germany last October – and now the car is finally (almost) here, arriving later this month in US dealers.

Porsche told us that the ships carrying the cars are en route, and depending on which coast you’re on, they should arrive in the last week or two of this month. But Porsche and its dealers have been communicating the Sept 30th date for Macan availability – so if you’re looking forward to this car, you’ve only got a couple weeks to get your affairs in order (you can use our affiliate link to contact local dealers and get in line).

And today we’ve learned one of the final steps before getting these cars on the road has been submitted, as the Macan EV has been officially rated at 308 miles EPA range, or 288 miles for the Turbo. These numbers are lower than the European 381-mile WLTP range, but WLTP ranges are always higher due to different testing protocols.

So we expected a range of around 300 miles for the Macan EV, and that’s what we got. Though Porsche also told us that range will be “10-15% higher in real world.”

These range numbers translate to an MPGe rating of 98, or 91 MPGe for the Turbo version. Both of these numbers are higher than any Taycan efficiency numbers, which is somewhat incongruous given the Macan is a larger vehicle.

When the Taycan came out, it had pretty low EPA-rated range/efficiency numbers, but it turned out those estimates were highly conservative and that Porsche voluntarily lowered its numbers in order to “underpromise and overdeliver.” So it looks like Porsche is looking to do the same thing again here.

However, other preliminary US reviews we’ve seen showed the Macan having high-200s mile range. We haven’t had a chance to do a range test on the Macan ourselves, yet, so we can’t confirm those numbers.

So, as usual, “your mileage may vary,” but it looks like the car will have more than enough range for buyers.

It’s also capable of 270kW charging, which Porsche says will allow it to charge from 10-80% in 21 minutes. This is plenty quick enough to fill up at a lunch stop, long bathroom + stretch break, or whatever else, and get you back on the road without significant delay.

In this day and age, quick charging speeds is really the more important thing to focus on anyway, and there are big changes on the horizon in that respect, with Porsche committing to NACS connectors in 2025.

However, despite the Macan EV being a 2025 model, it will retain the previous SAE CCS port, and will not use the NACS part for the foreseeable future. So you’ll have to stay tuned for more updates in that respect, including potential adapter availability (Porsche is currently not on Tesla’s NACS “coming soon” page, and the NACS rollout has been slowed by Supercharging chaos caused by Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s impromptu firing of the entire Supercharger team).

If our coverage of EVs has been helpful to you, you can use our affiliate link to contact your local dealers about the 2025 Porsche Macan, and ask them to put you in line for the Macan EV when it shows up at the end of this month.

Hydrogen-electric plane developer ZeroAvia has completed another successful financing round, led by some of its previous investors and some new ones. The sustainable aviation specialist plans to use the fresh funds to expedite the certification of its first powertrain and support selling its in-house components to other electrified aviation OEMs.

ZeroAvia has tasked itself with delivering 40—to 80-seat aircraft with up to 700 miles of range by 2027. So far, its sustainable technology has amassed some heavy hitters’ interest (and funding) in the segment to help push development forward.

In 2022, ZeroAvia secured over $30 million in funding, including investments from American Airlines, which joined Alaska Airlines and United in the hydrogen-electric plane venture.

2023 included several new partnerships and a fresh round of funding led by Airbus, Barclays, and Saudi Arabia’s “living laboratory,” NEOM. In late November, ZeroAvia announced a deal to provide up to 70 zero-emission planes to sustainable startup airline EcoJet, which looks to become the world’s first all-electric airline.

This past July, American Airlines committed to a large purchase of zero-emissions engines alongside a fresh investment in the aviation startup’s technology as part of a Series C fundraising round. Today, ZeroAvia announced it has extended upon that Series C round, which has now been completed for a total of $150 million.

ZeroAvia adds more names to its investment rolodex

The sustainable aviation company shared details of its extended financing round today. This included a 20 million euro £20m (23.7M euros) investment from the Scottish National Investment Bank, aka “The Bank,” which joins other investors like American Airlines, International Airlines Group (IAG), and ITOCHU Corporation. 

ZeroAvia shared that the round was co-led by Airbus, Barclays Sustainable Impact Capital, and the NEOM Investment Fund (NIF). UK Infrastructure Bank joined as a cornerstone-level investor, and existing shareholders like  Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Horizons Ventures, Ecosystem Integrity Fund, Summa Equity, Alaska Airlines, Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund, and AP Ventures also participated.

The funding will enable the aviation startup to accelerate its progress toward certifying its first hydrogen-electric plane powertrain for commercial operations. Per ZeroAvia founder and CEO, Val Miftakhov:

We have closed an exceptionally strong financing round to help us deliver the clean future of flight for the entirety of aviation. As a purpose–driven impact investor, the Bank is an ideal partner for ZeroAvia. Scotland’s ambitious net zero targets, its strategic focus on hydrogen and its strong existing aerospace skills base make it an attractive place for ZeroAvia’s UK production operations as we scale into a major aerospace manufacturer.

In addition to locking in flight certification, ZeroAvia says the $150M in funding will help it begin sales of its in-house aviation technology, including electric motors and fuel cell power generation systems, to other companies.

ZeroAvia has already flight-tested a prototype of its first ZA600 engine, implemented aboard a Dornier 228 aircraft at its UK base, and its application for certification with the CAA is already underway. Additionally, the company has completed advanced ground tests in the US and UK of its ZA2000 system, which can someday help sustainably propel 80-seat regional turboprop aircraft.

That larger and more advanced propulsion system includes cryogenic tanks for LH2 and proprietary high-temperature PEM fuel cell and electric systems.