Labour: We’d give 4,000 NHS staff free private treatment for joint pain

LABOUR will allow NHS staff suffering joint pain to go private for free so they can return to work more quickly, Wes Streeting said yesterday.

The shadow health secretary announced a partnership with private provider Nuffield Health to allow up to 4,000 NHS workers to be treated free of charge each year.

It is the latest sign of Mr Streeting’s willingness to make use of the private sector to work alongside the NHS.

He told BBC1’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg: ‘We want to use the spare capacity that exists in the private sector.

‘They tell us they can do more and we want to work with them to put together a serious plan that gives them some stability and certainty over the medium term about what they can deliver, at what cost.

‘I’m determined to make sure we get both the reassurance we need on patient safety but also value for taxpayers’ money.’

A record 198,000 working days were missed by NHS staff in December because of arthritis and knee, hip and joint pain.

Mr Streeting recently

announced plans to make NHS staff work at weekends to deliver an extra 40,000 NHS appointments a week.

It would mean hospitals running evening and weekend surgeries, with staff and resources pooled across a region. Patients will be offered slots at nearby hospitals, rather than just their local one, allowing them to be treated faster, he said.

The policy to cut NHS waiting times by scheduling 40,000 more appointments each week is one of

Sir Keir Starmer’s six pledges to voters should Labour form the next government.

In an interview with the Sunday Telegraph, Mr Streeting pledged to spend £1.1 billion to pay staff extra for overtime to deliver the promised number of weekly operations, scans or appointments.

The party claims it can raise the money through clamping down on tax dodgers and tightening up the rules on non-doms.

Labour research indicated more than half of England’s hospitals close operating theatres at the weekend.

According to a freedom of information request last year, hospitals performed an average of 795 procedures on weekdays, but just

‘Want to use the spare capacity’

176 on Saturdays or Sundays. However, British Medical Association council chairman Professor Philip Banfield said: ‘Expecting staff to stretch themselves thinner and thinner will do nothing to keep doctors in the NHS or attract new recruits.’

Mr Streeting also said the NHS was ‘ over- reliant’ on migrant workers, which he described as ‘problematic’.

■ Billionaire Sir Jim Ratcliffe has said he believes Keir Starmer would do a ‘very good job’ as prime minister.

Sir Jim, chairman of chemical firm Ineos and part- owner of Manchester United, predicted a Labour victory but said he’d work with any government.