NHS must work for its patients, not itself
Wes Streeting is being hailed as a Labour politician brave enough to challenge the notion that the NHS is untouchable. The shadow health and social care secretary has made several recent pronouncements that most people would find unexceptionable but which few politicians dare utter, let alone those on the Left.
His interview in The Sunday Telegraph suggested that here, finally, was a leading Labour figure prepared to accept that fundamental reform of the NHS is needed, not just more money. Mr Streeting has personal reasons for taking a jaundiced view of the NHS since his own care following treatment for kidney cancer left much to be desired.
But his experience is replicated across the country by that of thousands of others. Everyone seems to have a story about failings in the system, either affecting them directly or causing difficulties for relatives and friends. The irony of the planned strike by ambulance drivers is that it is difficult enough in normal times to get an emergency vehicle. The system is broken and everyone knows it, but none of our politicians has been prepared to concede the fact. The Conservatives fear a backlash if they do.
Mr Streeting says that if more money is to be pledged to the NHS it must be on condition of reforms that bring about better results for patients. He is prepared to stand up to the health unions and says the demands were unaffordable.
Nonetheless, he used an urgent question in the Commons yesterday to urge ministers to negotiate with nurses and paramedics who are demanding a 19 per cent increase. He said the power to stop these strikes is in the Government’s hands. Actually, it’s in the hands of an independent pay review body whose recommendation for a 4.75 per cent increase was accepted. Mr Streeting himself has said the demand is unaffordable but cannot resist parroting the unions’ criticism.
Beyond the immediate pay dispute, wider reform is essential and yet political leaders refuse even to contemplate bringing the NHS more into line with continental Europe. In his report on the constitution last week, Gordon Brown said free access to the NHS should be made a statutory right. Any reform of the service towards a health insurance model would be outlawed.
This is precisely the sort of short-sightedness that has brought the NHS to the brink of collapse. The constitutional right that people should have is a health service that works.