Health secretary Wes Streeting faces challenge turning round NHS

New health secretary Wes Streeting has called the NHS ‘broken’, but with only £2billion of extra spending promised so far he faces an enormous challenge to turn it around.  

The Government says it has already started to work on fixing the service and that the effort to get 40,000 extra appointments a week up and running as promised ‘starts straight away’.

Mr Streeting has also begun talks with junior doctors, who have been accused of holding politically motivated strikes ahead of the Conservative Party conference and the general election.

But while Labour insists it has the policies needed to begin solving the NHS’ problems, experts have warned the lack of money and the organisation’s sprawling structure would make this task extremely challenging. 

The NHS is made up of more than 200 trusts, 42 regional bodies and an array of regulators and National Colleges, all with different leadership teams. 

New health secretary Wes Streeting (seen yesterday) has described the NHS as ‘broken’ 

Paul Corrigan, a former adviser to the Labour health secretary Alan Milburn who has met Mr Streeting’s team, also warned of a lack of belief on the ground that real change was possible, telling The Times: ‘The degree of inertia is really quite significant.’

Meanwhile, hospital bosses are concerned that pressure from a new government to hit narrowly defined targets could have unintended consequences and distract from wider improvements. 

Sir Julian Hartley, chief executive of NHS Providers – which represents hospitals – called for the government to be ‘really clear-eyed’ about the scale of challenges.

‘That will require a comprehensive assessment of where we are right now, which may well go beyond the statements or the commitments that have been made so far,’ she said. 

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Sir Keir Starmer said yesterday that ‘raw honesty’ on the NHS was necessary and outlined proposals to change how hospitals operate.

Labour’s flagship NHS policy is tackling the near record waiting list with an additional 40,000 appointments each week.

Some 6.33 million patients are stuck on the waiting list for routine hospital care in England, waiting for 7.57 million treatments, operations or procedures. 

Mr Streeting has also committed to getting the A&E waiting time back on track within Labour’s first term in office.

There will also be pressure for him to get a grip on cancer wait times, with the latest figures showing there has been a rise in the proportion of patients facing longer waits to have cancer ruled out or diagnosed, or start treatment.

Labour’s plan to slash waiting times relies partly on getting staff to work longer hours in return for 50 per cent more pay for the extra time worked. 

There are also plans for high-intensity operating theatres, where surgeons carry out procedures like knee replacements on weekends, and a ‘short term’ increase of private sector providers. 

Mr Streeting has already opened talks with the BMA over the junior doctors’ strikes, sparking fears he could offer big concessions to their demands for 35 per cent pay hikes. 

Mr Streeting with Mr Starmer on a visit to a hospital in Worksop last month 

The bitter dispute over pay has lasted for 20 months and seen junior doctors go out on strike 11 times, causing widespread disruption across the NHS.

Meanwhile, Mr Streeting also faces the threat of collective action by GPs across England – with family doctors currently being balloted by the British Medical Association on whether or not they are in favour of staging action amid a row over the new contract for GP services in England.

This could potentially mean GPs limit the number of patients they will see each day to 25, or they may choose to stop performing work they are not formally contracted to do.

Sally Warren, director of policy at the King’s Fund think tank, said agency that resolving industrial action in the NHS should be the Health Secretary’s ‘first priority’.

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Other challenges faced by Mr Streeting include a £11.6billion maintenance backlog and preparing the health service for winter. 

Labour has pledged to end the 8am scramble for GP appointments by training more doctors and updating the NHS app so slots are easy to book and rearrange.

Meanwhile, an adult social care workforce strategy is due to be launched mid-July setting out what the sector needs over the next 15 years on pay, training and career development.

Sir Keir was asked on Saturday whether he was happy with the performance of NHS England chief executive Amanda Pritchard and if he will be keeping her on. 

He replied: ‘This is not aimed at the chief executive of the NHS, it’s a reflection on the failure of leadership of the last government, but it is a raw honesty about the state of the NHS because we will not fix it if we aren’t honest.

‘It’s a tough thing to hear if you work in the NHS. Obviously my wife works in the NHS, as I may have mentioned, but it’s tough because if you work in the NHS, you’re putting a huge amount in in difficult circumstances. It’s unrelenting.

‘But, you know, we have to be honest about this. It’s broken and our job now is not just to say who broke it, the last government, but to get on and start to fix it which is what we will be doing and (Health Secretary) Wes Streeting has already started on that work.’

Sir Keir addressed the state of the NHS during a press conference yesterday 

Mr Streeting wrote after the Prime Minister’s press conference: ‘Following this morning’s Cabinet meeting, I held calls with health ministers in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and (Scottish Labour’s health spokesperson Jackie Baillie) @jackiebmsp.

‘A Labour government in Westminster will be a rising tide that lifts all ships and we’ll work constructively with devolved administrations.’

Questioned during the press conference on when he can commit to getting 40,000 additional appointments up and running, the Prime Minister said the work on that ‘starts straight away’.

He said St Thomas’ Hospital in Westminster and other hospitals across the country, including Leeds, have already introduced these additional appointments ‘of their own volition’ by setting up schemes to work evenings and weekends.

‘We’ve talked through with them how they did it… they will go across the country to be deployed to help set up the model in other hospitals as quickly as we can,’ he said.

‘So I can’t say by day X it will happen, but we’ve already had quite some discussions about how that will be rolled out from day one.’

While the NHS has faced its own difficulties in recent years, surveys show that the majority of the British public still believe in the founding principles of the service.

Some 82% agree that the NHS should be available to everyone, 91% think it should be free of charge and 82% believe it should be primarily funded through taxes, according to the latest Social Attitudes Survey.

Yet the poll showed that satisfaction with the service dipped to its lowest ever level in 2023, with some 24% of the public saying they were satisfied with the health service.

Wes StreetingConservativesLabour

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