Health and Social Care Secretary Wes Streeting has on Wednesday laid out his vision for reforming the National Health Service, stating that the NHS is “broken but not beaten” after years of Conservative governance.
In his address to the annual Labour Party conference in Liverpool, Streeting highlighted the current challenges facing the NHS, including record-high waiting lists, ambulance delays, and difficulties in accessing GP appointments.
Stressing that “reform or die” is the choice facing the NHS, he rejected the idea of simply increasing funding without systemic changes.
Streeting noted some initial successes since Labour took office, including employing 1,000 more GPs and negotiating an end to junior doctors’ strikes.
He revealed that crack teams of top clinicians will be deployed to hospitals across the country to roll out reforms: to treat more patients and cut waiting lists.
“And I can announce today that the first twenty hospitals targeted by these teams will be in areas with the highest numbers of people off work sick,” he added.
“Because our reforms are focused not only on delivering our health mission but also moving the dial on our growth mission too. We will take the best of the NHS to the rest of the NHS.”
He outlined plans for a ‘Neighbourhood Health Service’ that would be more digital, preventative, and personalized and promised a ‘New Deal for Care Professionals’ to improve pay and conditions in the social care sector.
Streeting said the Labour government plans to expand patients’ rights to choose where they receive treatment, including private sector options paid for by the NHS.
“Starting in the most disadvantaged areas, we will ensure patients’ right to choose where they are treated, and we will build up local health services so it’s a genuine choice,” he said. “And where there’s capacity in the private sector, patients should be able to choose to go there too, free at the point of use, paid for by the NHS Read More….
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