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WES STREETING
The NHS is in a ‘critical condition’… unless we perform major surgery, the patient will die
Cancer is more likely to be a death sentence for Brits than patients in similar countries
WHEN I asked Lord Darzi to launch an investigation into the state of the NHS in July, I told him to leave no stone unturned.
I wanted hard truths, warts and all.
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Now, he’s delivered a raw and sobering assessment of the task ahead.
As a respected NHS cancer surgeon, who has served in Labour and Conservative governments, his findings carry enormous weight.
What Lord Darzi has uncovered has shocked him, and left me appalled.
Sun readers should be furious.
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Almost one in every ten patients in A&E waits for 12 hours to be seen.
Cancer is more likely to be a death sentence for Brits than patients in similar countries.
The promise that the NHS will be there for us when we need it has been broken for a decade.
‘Scorched the earth’
It’s not just sickness in the NHS that has concerned Lord Darzi, but sickness in society.
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Children were healthier a decade ago than they are today.
We are living longer, but we’re getting ill earlier.
It’s piling pressure and costs on our health service, and holding back our economy.
NHS A&E waiting times soar
Those are the symptoms.
Darzi’s investigation is equally damning on the causes.
A decade of underinvestment under the Conservatives left NHS staff without the tools to do the job, particularly in technology, where the NHS is 15 years behind the private sector.
The 2012 top-down reorganisation sucked the energy and expertise out of the health service, the effects of which are still felt today.
Darzi says it “scorched the earth” for health reform, while many of the reforms made by New Labour, which delivered the shortest waiting lists and highest patient satisfaction in history, were reversed.
As a result, the money that did go into the NHS was wasted in the wrong places, like water poured into a leaky bucket.
None of the problems facing the NHS is because it is free at the point of use — its vital signs are strong.
All this left the NHS uniquely exposed to the pandemic.
It’s not that the Conservatives didn’t fix the roof when the sun was shining, they doused the house in petrol and left the gas on.
Covid just lit the match.
The NHS was hit harder than any other healthcare system, and the backlog ballooned.
We’re left with a health service unable to be there for us today, and unprepared for the challenges and opportunities of tomorrow.
The NHS is in a “critical condition”, according to Darzi.
Unless we perform major surgery, the patient will die.
That’s the choice this Government has inherited.
The Conservatives would have continued to neglect the health service, letting it collapse.
But Lord Darzi’s report concluded that none of the problems facing the NHS is because it is free at the point of use — its vital signs are strong.
Others would argue that we can keep ducking reform, if we just spend more money.
But we inherited a £22billion black hole and a stagnant economy.
The money isn’t there and working people can’t afford to pay more and more in tax.
This Government’s prescription is recovery and reform.
We are taking immediate action to get the NHS back on its feet now — ending the strikes and hiring 1,000 extra GPs.
And we are embarking on a ten-year plan for change and modernisation to make the NHS fit for the future.
We are going to turn the NHS into a Neighbourhood Health Service, built around patients’ interests, not vested interests.
We know where we need to get to.
The plan will set out how we get there.
Darzi is clear that the NHS is too focused on hospital treatment — the most expensive place to treat patients — and not enough on preventing people ending up there.
We are going to turn the NHS into a Neighbourhood Health Service, built around patients’ interests, not vested interests.
You’ll be able to get tests and scans on your local high street, and be cared for in the comfort of your own home.
This will have to mean saying no to hospital trusts sucking resources away from GPs, pharmacies and social care.
We’ll bring our analogue health service into the digital age.
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The NHS app will give every patient proper control over their healthcare — as we expect in every other part of our lives — so choice isn’t only available to those who can afford to go private.
To stop growing pressures overwhelming the NHS, it must do more to help people stay healthy.
It won’t happen overnight.
It took the Conservatives 14 years to break the NHS, it will take time to fix it.
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Every person I’ve met in the NHS during my first two months as Health Secretary is up for the challenge.
We’ve turned the NHS around before, and we will do it again.
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