‘The NHS is broken’ says new health and social care secretary
Wes Streeting has been named as health and social care secretary — and said talks with junior doctors will begin shortly.
Mr Streeting has been a shadow since 2021 when he was appointed to the post by Sir Keir Starmer.
Late on Friday, he issued a statement saying he had called the British Medical Association junior doctors leaders and would begin talks with them about their pay dispute next week.
The junior doctors have been holding strikes since last year including, most recently, at the end of last month. Mr Streeting will also meet the British Dental Association on Monday, and is “holding meetings with NHS leaders and officials to begin work on delivering 40,000 extra appointments per week”.
A statement issued shortly after he arrived at his new department at 39 Victoria Street added: ”When we said during the election campaign, that the NHS was going through the biggest crisis in its history, we meant it…
“Previous governments have not been willing to admit these simple facts. But in order to cure an illness, you must first diagnose it. This government will be honest about the challenges facing our country, and serious about tackling them.
“From today, the policy of this department is that the NHS is broken…
“This government has received a mandate from millions of voters for change and reform of the NHS, so it can be there for us when we need it once again. It will take time — we never pretended that the NHS could be fixed overnight.
“And it will take a team effort. It will be the mission of my department, every member of this government, and the 1.4 million people who work in the NHS, to turn our health service around.”
Mr Streeting has been an MP since 2015 and previously served as the shadow minister for schools and a shadow Treasury minister. He was also president of the National Union of Students, and deputy leader of Redbridge London Borough Council. On Thursday, however, he only narrowly kept his Ilford North seat — with a majority of just over 500 votes on Thursday.
In a wide-ranging interview with HSJ before the election, Mr Streeting set out his plans for the NHS if Labour were to win. He pledged to increase the proportion of NHS funding given to primary and community care by the end of a first term in government and said he had “total confidence” in the current NHSE CEO Amanda Pritchard.
He also said trusts would pay “time and a half” to staff for the additional out-of-hours work to deliver the extra 2 million elective appointments each year the party has promised, and described re-establishing the credibility of the Care Quality Commission as a “first order priority” for a Labour government.
In his first speech as prime minister today, Sir Keir said his government would work to have the “NHS back on its feet, facing the future”.