Shadow health secretary Wes Streeting risks wrath of Labour activists as he says party is ‘too nostalgic’ about NHS and it MUST be reformed – with £10billion of savings identified
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Shadow health secretary Wes Streeting has warned the party is too nostalgic when it comes to the NHS as he identified £10billion of waste that can be saved if Labour wins power.
The frontbencher attacked the idea that just pouring cash into the health service would solve its problems, saying: ‘You can’t just keep on pouring ever-increasing amounts of money into a leaky bucket, you’ve got to deal with the bucket itself.’
In remarks likely to rile the Labour left he told the Sun that every time he argued in favour of reform there were ‘howls of outrage from online activists’.
‘I think there are times when the Labour Party is led too heavily into nostalgia,’ he said.
‘It would be the easiest thing in the world to go into the next general election just saying ”worst crisis in NHS history”, ”you can’t trust the Tories on the NHS”, ”you’ve got 24 hours to save the NHS” and, by the way, here’s a nice sepia film of Nye Bevan.’
The frontbencher attacked the idea that just pouring cash into the health service would solve its problems, saying: ‘You can’t just keep on pouring ever-increasing amounts of money into a leaky bucket, you’ve got to deal with the bucket itself.’
‘I think there are times when the Labour Party is led too heavily into nostalgia,’ he said. ‘It would be the easiest thing in the world to go into the next general election just saying ”worst crisis in NHS history”, ”you can’t trust the Tories on the NHS”, ”you’ve got 24 hours to save the NHS” and, by the way, here’s a nice sepia film of Nye Bevan (pictured).’
In response, the Momentum organisation close to the former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, tweeted: ‘The British Medical Journal called funding ”the elephant in the room” when it comes to the NHS.
‘Wes Streeting is utterly wrong to deny the importance of investing in our NHS. And he is setting Labour up for failure in government.’
Mr Streeting had been due to give a speech on the NHS at the Institute for Government conference today, but he was forced to pull out at the last minute due to illness.
Labour said it could save £3.5billion by ending payments to recruitment agencies to cover staffing shortfalls, as well as a further £1.7 billion pounds by freeing up hospital beds currently occupied by patients who can’t be sent home due to a lack of available care in the community.
However, the NHS Confederation, which represents organisations across the healthcare sector, cautioned against budget cuts to a service that is already struggling due to underinvestment.
‘Capital budgets are already being raided to plug rising deficits in the day-to-day NHS budget caused by strikes and other cost pressures,’ the NHS Confederation said, adding that the next government needed to boost capital funding to help address the backlog.
Labour has previously set out plans to integrate health and social care, and recruit and retain more carers.
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