Sir Keir Starmer today attempted to stablilise his rocky Labour administration by launching a new 10-year plan for the NHS.
In what has swiftly become the PM’s worst week in office so far – after he was forced to shelve key welfare reforms – Sir Keir outlined a major health shake-up.
The Government is promising to deliver ‘a brand-new era for the NHS’ and ‘one of the most seismic shifts in care in the history of the health service’.
The ’10 Year Health Plan’ includes plans for the creation of a ‘neighbourhood health service’ to ease the strain on hospitals.
New neighbourhood health services will be rolled out across the country to bring tests, post-op care, nursing and mental health teams closer to people’s homes.
The aim is to give people access to a full range of services, leaving hospitals to focus on the sickest, with neighbourhood health centres opening at evenings and weekends.
Labour is promising new health centres to house the neighbourhood teams, which will eventually be open 12 hours a day, six days a week within local communities.
But the plans appear to be less ambitious than pledges by previous governments to make the NHS a seven-day service, which were left unmet.
Sir Keir Starmer today attempted to stablilise his rocky Labour administration by launching a new 10-year plan for the NHS
The PM sought to shift focus away from several chaotic days in Westminster. This saw him U-turn on welfare cuts, as well as scenes of Rachel Reeves crying in the House of Commons
The Government is promising to deliver ‘a brand-new era for the NHS’ and ‘one of the most seismic shifts in care in the history of the health service’
Jeremy Hunt, the former Tory health secretary, saw doctors begin the first all-out strike in NHS history in 2016 as he tried to introduce a seven-day health service.
Ex-Labour PM Gordon Brown also promised new health centres that would open seven days a week for 12 hours a day, but saw his plans resisted by unions.
Sir Keir used a speech on Thursday to unveil his vision for the NHS, as he sought to shift focus away from several chaotic days in Westminster.
This saw him U-turn on welfare cuts amid the threat of a major revolt by Labour MPs, as well as scenes of Chancellor Rachel Reeves crying in the House of Commons.
Sir Keir acknowledged improvements were needed in the NHS but said the situation was better than when Labour first took over from the Conservatives a year ago.
Speaking at a health centre in London, the PM said: ‘I’m not going to stand here and say everything is perfect now, we have a lot more work to do and we will do it.
‘But let’s be under no illusions: because of the fair choices we made, the tough Labour decisions we made, the future already looks better for our NHS.
‘And that is the story of this Government in a nutshell.’
Sir Keir said that reforming the NHS is ‘about fairness’, adding: ‘Millions of people across Britain no longer feel that they get a fair deal.
‘And it’s starting to affect the pride, the hope, the optimism that they have in this great country, and our job is to change that.’
He continued: ‘For 77 years this weekend, the NHS has been the embodiment, if you like, of British pride, of hope, that basic sense of fairness and decency.
’77 years of everyone paying in, working hard, doing the right thing, secure in the knowledge that if they or their family needs it, the NHS will be there for them.
‘In 10 years’ time, when this plan has run its course, I want people to say that this was the moment, this was the Government, that secured those values for the future.
‘Look, when people are uncertain about the deal they’re getting from this country, what fairer way is there to respond than that.
‘By giving them more control, by partnering with them to build an NHS that is fit to face the future? And that is what this plan that we are launching today will do.’
The new health plan sets out how the NHS will move from analogue to digital, treatment to prevention, and from hospital to more community care.
The ‘status quo of hospital by default will end’, according to the Government, with care shifted into neighbourhoods and people’s homes.
By 2035, the intention is that the majority of outpatient care will happen outside of hospitals, with less need for hospital-based appointments for things like eye care, cardiology, respiratory medicine and mental health.
New services will also include debt advice, employment support and stop smoking or obesity services – all of which affect people’s health.
Community outreach, with people going door to door, could also reduce pressure on GPs and A&E, the Government said.
In her first public appearance since crying in the Commons chamber on Wednesday, Ms Reeves said Labour’s NHS plan will be ‘good for the health of our nation and good for the health of our nation’s finances’.
The Chancellor said: ‘I want to be clear, we are spending money on taxpayers’ priorities.
But that wouldn’t have been possible without the measures that we took in the budget last year.
‘We fixed the foundations and we’ve put our economy back on a strong footing.’
No one ‘defends the status quo’ in the NHS, Health Secretary Wes Streeting said, as he also helped to launch the 10-year plan.
‘I’m sometimes told that NHS staff are resistant to change. On the contrary, they are crying out for it,’ he said.
Mr Streeting also said the public are ‘desperate for change too’.
Hitting out at the Government’s political opponents, the Health Secretary said: ‘Now we know there are those on the right who are willing us to fail.
‘There have always been those who whispered that the NHS is a burden, too expensive, inferior to the market, and today, those voices grow louder, exploiting the crisis in our NHS in order to dismantle it.
‘They say that universal healthcare could be afforded in the 20th century, but not in the 21st. This Labour Government rejects their pessimism.’
