Health Secretary Wes Streeting admits NHS reform will not begin right away

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2 months ago

October 21, 2024

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Health Secretary Wes Streeting has admitted NHS reform will not happen straight away.

The government launched a public consultation on Monday, asking members of the public, NHS staff, and experts to share their experiences and ideas to “help fix our NHS”.

But Mr Streeting admitted that reforms will not take place until that process has been completed – 10 months on from Labour’s election win in June.

He also said NHS funding agreed with Chancellor Rachel Reeves – to be announced in the upcoming budget – would not be available until next April.

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Mr Streeting told Sky News: “Investment in the budget, that comes in the new fiscal year in April, so that’s spring.”

Labour’s election manifesto promised the party would “transform the NHS”, starting with cutting waiting times by adding 40,000 more appointments every week.

Labour politicians said reforms it wanted to make were fully costed, giving voters the impression they could make changes straight away.

Mr Streeting said the improvements they want to make in the NHS, such as cutting waiting times, are “big changes” so will take time.

Locals share their view on how to improve the NHS

In Wolverhampton city centre Michael Ryan, 66, is waiting to see his GP to get a wound re-dressed.

“I just had a hernia operation,” he says, before revealing he had to wait eight years for the surgery to go ahead.

“Fair enough, two of those were during Covid,” he says. But his experience has left him certain the NHS needs “more money invested in it”.

This is a city where almost a third of working-age people don’t work. Many, like Robert Griffiths, are signed off sick. The 36-year-old has epilepsy and it’s affecting his mental health.

“It’s very frustrating but you can understand why it’s frustrating because they don’t have the staff,” he says.

He thinks the government needs to pay NHS workers more and reintroduce bursaries to encourage more people to train up.

But Sylvia Crutchley, 78, believes it needs to do more than that.

“I think the system needs a complete overhaul,” she says.

She points to a wound on her leg from a fall she had last week. She had to wait nine hours in A&E before being seen.

In a pharmacy we found people queuing for COVID jabs. The trainee pharmacist administering them told us the number of people coming in complaining they couldn’t get an appointment with their GP is “just ridiculous”.

And there was no shortage of views from people collecting prescriptions on what the NHS needs to improve.

Roger Flavell, 77, believes “more staff and more money” are essential.

But he thinks there will eventually be a “two tier system where people who can pay will pay”.

“I think it would make the NHS better,” he said.

He said they will have a “reform mindset that says we’re not just going to throw money at the problem, we’re going to reform ways of working”.

“I suppose you could say, well, you should just come in and impose your view of change,” the health secretary said.

“I’d just say to people, be careful what you wish for.

“The last time a new health secretary came in after a general election where their party won power, that was Andrew Lansley.

“The Conservatives after 2010, who came down with a massive top-down reorganisation that nobody voted for, nobody wanted, cost billions and set the NHS up to fail.”

Mr Streeting added he did not want to just pour money “into a black hole”.

He said: “It’s up to us to restore financial discipline in the NHS, better quality of care in the NHS, and to make sure that not just the extra money that’s going in is well spent, but to make sure that the money that’s already going in is being put in the right place at the right time to deliver the right care for the patient at the right time.”

The health secretary confirmed to Sky News on Sunday that his department had agreed to its funding with the chancellor ahead of the 30 October budget.

The Department for Health and Social Care has one of the biggest departmental budgets alongside the Department for Work and Pensions

In 2022, the UK spent 11.3% of GDP on health – £182bn – just above the average for comparable countries. The figure rises each year, with 2024/25 expected to see £192bn spent on the NHS, according to the King’s Fund.

Other ministers had been locked in negotiations with the chancellor over cuts she wants to make to their departments as she seeks £40bn of tax rises and spending cuts.

Several ministers had written letters to Sir Keir Starmer to express concern over the scale of cuts being demanded.