The health secretary has said NHS waiting lists need to be “millions lower” by the next general election in 2029.
Wes Streeting told Sky News’ Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips he is willing to do whatever it takes to ensure waiting lists are brought down, including using the private sector.
He said the “NHS waiting list will need to be millions lower by the end of this parliament”.
Mr Streeting’s comments came ahead of a report into the state of the NHS by eminent surgeon Lord Darzi, which has found a range of issues including falling vaccination rates in children, an 82% increase in children and young people being admitted to hospital for eating disorders since 2019-2020, and a third of children from poor backgrounds being obese by the age of 11.
The report has also found “significant progress” made on heart and circulatory diseases over the past 50 years is beginning to reverse.
Mr Streeting said he wants to end the “two-tier system” where those who can afford it go private “and those who can’t are being left behind”.
However, he said where there is spare capacity in the private sector the NHS should use that to get waiting lists down.
“Rebuilding that [the NHS] takes time,” he said.
“So in the meantime, I’m looking to pull every single lever I can to make sure that people get treated as fast as possible and as safely as possible.
“And you can get those waiting lists down, get people back to health, back to work, or back to enjoying their lives in retirement.”
Mr Streeting said his centre-left principles mean he cannot leave “working class people waiting longer even where there is spare capacity in the private sector that we could use via the NHS to get those people treated faster”.
Questioned on whether GPs will get the 11% pay rise they are asking for, after Labour gave other public sector workers their requested increases, Mr Streeting would not confirm they will.
Instead, he said he has been in negotiations with the British Medical Association (BMA) GP committee and met them “many times” since becoming health secretary.
However, he said he did want to “set expectations in the wrong places” as he cited cutting the winter fuel allowance for some pensioners as an example of the difficult decisions the government is willing to make to get the economy going.
“There are difficult balances to strike in the public finances,” he said.
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The investigation into the state of the NHS, ordered by the government in July, and undertaken by Lord Darzi, a top cancer surgeon and former Labour health minister, will be published on Thursday.
Sir Keir Starmer said the review shows the NHS is “broken” and is expected to reveal “too many” people are being let down by the NHS.
Shadow health secretary Victoria Atkins said she was concerned by Lord Darzi’s links to the Labour Party as she said the NHS situation in Wales, which has been under Labour control for more than 100 years, is “lamentable”.
“This report, I fear, is cover for the Labour Party to raise our taxes in the budget in October and they are laying the groundwork for this,” she said.
“They weren’t straight with us about winter fuel payments. They’re not being straight with us about taxes. And we need to have a grown up conversation about the NHS, but this is not the way to go about it.”
