Health secretary Wes Streeting says that Lord Darzi’s report concludes that the NHS is “broken but not beaten” and that “investment matters but so does reform”.
Streeting was talking to Sky News, where he discussed former Labour health minister Lord Darzi’s report into NHS performance which is expected to be delivered this week. He warned that without the necessary reform, then there will be a “heavy price for failure”.
He added that the goal for this parliament is to get the NHS back to its constitutional standards, which will require waiting lists to be “millions lower” by 2028/29.
Streeting commissioned seasoned innovator Lord Darzi to perform his ‘warts and all’ report a week after coming into office in a bid to “uncover hard truths” and “leave no stone unturned”. This overarching goal of cutting waiting lists is also why Streeting agreed a deal with junior doctors as he saw it as an “essential ingredient”.
Using the independent sector
Streeting told Trevor Phillips that he wants to use the independent sector for its spare capacity as a “means to an end”.
The health secretary said: “We want to do an independent sector deal so we can do more of it where the capacity is available, but fundamentally it is a means to an end – the end is to, not just get the NHS back on its feet, but make sure its fit for the future so we’re not reliant on the independent sector in the longer term.”
To do this, Streeting says the NHS needs three shifts from:
- Hospital to community
- Analogue to digital
- Sickness to prevention
He adds that he wants to put an end to the two-tiered system where people who can afford to go private do so, while those who cannot are left behind – it is a short-term solution while the NHS builds itself for the future.
A recent report from the Independent Healthcare Providers Network concluded that by expanding its influence in the NHS’s community diagnostic centre programme, the NHS could save £500m.
GP deal
When pushed on the deal for GPs, Streeting said that negotiations were still ongoing after the “significant uplift” in the GP contract. GPs launched collective action at the start of last month in protest of the GP contract.
This came at the same time the government funded the recruitment of an additional 1,000 GPs – something Streeting says represents a “statement of intent”.
“One of the first things I did, which I think is a statement of intent, was put around £100m into employing 1,000 GPs by the end of this year, who otherwise would’ve been unemployed,” he said.
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